It all started in 1932, during the Great Depression. A group of Wellington businessmen, keen to supply market gardeners with a good source of limestone, decided the hills of Hatuma would be a prime location to open up a quarry. Within a couple of years, 8000 tonnes was being transported via the main railway line that ran adjacent to the site. By 1940 that production doubled and projections looked very good.
New Zealand led the world in the use of agricultural lime. It was unanimous - both the Government and its scientists in the Department of Agriculture saw huge benefits for the fertility of the country’s soil, and this was reflected in the large subsidies given to farmers. Applying lime was something they did without question and they were happy to do so; it helped provide quality pasture, good soil life and good stock constitution. Farmers knew its worth. However, with the advent of aerial topdressing, that was all about to change.
In those days it was impossible to topdress hill country. But after WWII, returned pilots began applying their flying skills to agriculture, and an industry was born. Superphosphate was spread over land that had come out of native bush, complete with its large reserve of humus, and the results came very fast. In fact, in one farmer’s opinion, it was like "a green paint brush had been waved across the land." There was much excitement throughout the country about what could now be achieved. The superphosphate industry had just made its biggest break-through.
The ripple effect from this went right to the top. The Department of Agriculture began conducting trials that focussed purely on grass growth, and, because lime could not compete with the new chemical fertilisers in this area, its importance declined. By 1960 the Government, under recommendations by the Department of Agriculture, lost complete confidence in the lime industry, and subsequently, withdrew all subsidies on it, while superphosphate was given full attention.
At this point, Hatuma could have quietly disappeared into local history. However, in 1952 the directors had employed a new general manager, Joe Topp. Joe, who was already managing the Mauriceville lime quarry in the Wairarapa, was offered the job because of his revolutionary achievements in the lime industry, because he was highly respected by the Department of Agriculture, his knowledge of the milling process, and his deep understanding of how to enhance soil fertility. By the end of the 1950s, he had transformed the Hatuma quarry into a mass-producing, bulk-handling operation, manufacturing 55,000 tonnes of lime a year. Another lime quarry was also erected at Waipawa at this time to help with the large demand. But when the Government intervened with this progress, it immediately severed the market Hatuma had worked hard to establish. Not only that, but Joe knew something had to be done to counter-act the negative affect that years of water-soluble, acidic superphosphate use was going to have on the country’s lakes, waterways, and ultimately the soil life. He began looking for an answer.
He found it in America. The Tennessee Valley Authority had cured its dustbowl problems by maturing calcium oxide (burnt lime), superphosphate and water together, then spreading the new product. Hatuma didn’t produce burnt lime, but it had a quarry full of calcium carbonate. Joe believed this actually worked better in his favour, because the natural limestone, with its important carbonate content untouched, would help achieve a neutral pH product and aid in nurturing the soil life. In 1963, with lime sales plummeting around him, Joe put down his first 2,500 tonnes of wet limestone and superphosphate as a 1:1 ratio, and waited four weeks for them to fully react. During this time the lime drove out the acidity of the superphosphate, and created dicalcic phosphate, a completely new product that wasn’t water-soluble, had a pH 6.5-7, was fully citric soluble (plant available), and most importantly, friendly to the humus makers. It was then broken up (it had set like concrete), crushed, screened and stored for dispatch.
No one, least Joe, could have seen the impact this new fertiliser was going to have on farmers. He let a few trusted ones, who were traditional lime and super advocates, trial it out. They instantly came back praising its merits. Word spread very quickly, sales doubled every year, and farmers came from all over to purchase this new product. Hatuma’s dicalcic phosphate started to gain momentum very quickly.
Various stories of how dicalcic was improving stock health and constitution, and farms becoming rejuvenated, started flooding in from around the countryside. Sometimes, farmers would even ring Joe after buying stock from the Waipukurau ewe fairs wanting to buy the fertiliser that grew the stock they had just bought! It was plainly obvious that there was much more to this dicalcic than the original theory. The demand was growing so quickly that it got to the stage where Hatuma was selling more tonnes of dicalcic phosphate than agricultural lime.
But in 1966 government intervention once again impacted upon Hatuma’s business. Dicalcic was denied the same transport subsidies as superphosphate, even though it had been registered as a fertiliser since 1963 and had complied with all the requirements of the Fertiliser Act. This made dicalcic uneconomic compared to the much cheaper superphosphate, and Hatuma started to cease expanding on the markets it had generated in Poverty Bay, Northern Hawkes Bay, Taranaki, Rangitikei, Manawatu, Wairarapa and Wellington. Amazingly though, Hatuma retained the farmers who had already been using dicalcic in these areas. These self-reliant farmers, who were achieving such great results, knowingly insisted that their farms still got this wonderful product spread despite the comparative extra cost. |
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For the rest of his life, Joe wrote to every Prime Minister, the Ministers of Justice, the Ministers of Agriculture, the Director Generals of Agriculture, the Ombudsmen, the local MP, in fact anyone who might have some influence in rectifying this unwarranted political intrusion into Hatuma’s hard-earned business.
Joe retired as General Manager in 1976. On the eve of his retirement, the budget announced that lime would have the same transport subsidy as fertiliser. This was great news for Hatuma and its lime and dicalcic users around the North Island.
Meanwhile, in 1964, Joe’s son Clifford began working at Hatuma. He had grown up rubbing shoulders with other pioneers of the agricultural industry, salesmen, farmers, topdressing pilots, spreading contractors, engineers, and so on. He had also gained first hand experience of the dicalcic story and the wonderful results it was achieving.
Clifford was appointed General Manager after Joe retired and one of his first challenges was the amalgamation of Hatuma with Wairarapa’s oldest lime company the Farmer’s Mauriceville Lime Co. Ltd. Joe, who had previously managed Mauriceville from 1942 -1952, and who was six months into his retirement, volunteered to undertake the rebuilding of the old works to the modern standards of the other two Hatuma quarries. Preparations were also made for dicalcic phosphate to be manufactured on this site.
In 1981 land was secured along the railway line in the township of Marton and a rapid unloading transfer station and bulk store, was established to help service the western side of the North Island and to keep up with the demand.
Between the years of 1977 - 1982 Hatuma, made considerable progress in all fronts. Huge storage sheds and mixing plants were installed, and heavy machinery was purchased. Within these short five years, over one million tonnes of product went out the gates, evidence that an impressive organisation was in existence to help maintain soil fertility.
In the mid 1980’s, after investigating and researching the lime requirements for the future, Hatuma introduced Cropfine lime to the agricultural world. Once the Department of Agriculture’s manufacturing specifications were removed in 1984, Hatuma was able to experiment with light liming and the Cropfine lime theory was conceived. This new product retained the same fine particles as the popular agricultural lime, but lost 40% of its coarser particles, ending in a product size similar to table salt. Farmers could now apply lime at only 60% the rate they would normally spread agricultural lime, while at the same time retaining the same dustless, free flowing properties.
The innovation behind Cropfine being brought into Hatuma’s product line was the desire for a finer lime to be mixed with the already extremely popular dicalcic. The standard agricultural lime was by now getting good results when mixed with the dicalcic, but as soon as the Cropfine took its place, its unique fast acting nature complemented the dicalcic so much that it set the new standard in liming. The timing of Cropfine could not have been better - with the removal of all fertiliser subsidies in 1986, annual topdressing suddenly became freedom of choice. Farmers could now apply an annual phosphate and lime application in one truly economical hit.
Since battling through the downturn of the 1980’s, Hatuma is back to producing 200,000 - 300,000 tonnes of product a year. Clifford reflects that there is very little in the industry that he hasn’t experienced at least once in the past 40 years. He is a strong advocate of ‘consistency is allied to the truth’ and one of the remarkable things about dicalcic phosphate is the consistency with its performance over the years. It has achieved incredible results on different livestock farms in different climates, hill country farms to low country farms, applied at heavy rates and very light rates, frequently and not so frequently. It has been with farmers through droughts, floods, hard economic times, good quality superphosphate, and not so good superphosphate, nitrogens and DAPs, liquid fertilisers and all the rest.
Farmers’ testimonies have consistently been at odds with conventional farming advice, and Hatuma never fails to be heartened when new clients try the dicalcic and Cropfine mixes and enthuse over the results they have obtained. Many clients are still having the same positive outcome today as they did when the first tonne of dicalcic was applied over 40 years ago. Like his father Joe, Clifford believes that the true experts are the farmers themselves; they are the ones who deal with all the aspects of the productivity from the land, and he considers it a great privilege to be taken into their confidence.
After nearly 70 years as an unlisted public company, Hatuma Lime Company is now fully privately owned by the Topp family and is very proud to be totally independent. Clifford’s wife Helen has also played a crucial role in the development of the Company. Since 1999 the third generation of Topps have taken up the challenge and the family business continues. Rachael, Aaron and Daniel all feel that their progression into the industry has been a natural one and they are very mindful of the history that they are a part of. |