Vaughan Jones pivotal to Fieldays’ success
Vaughan Leon Jones, ONZM July 6, 1931 – August 19, 2018
More than any other, Vaughan Jones, who has died at 87, established one of Hamilton’s, and this country’s, great institutions; the National Fieldays.
The Gordonton farmer was a foundation member of the Fieldays and the first Exhibits Committee chair in 1969, the agricultural event’s inaugural year.
It was Vaughan who, the following year, sourced the 150-acre Mystery Creek property.
When he retired in 1982, the Fieldays event was the biggest of its kind in the Southern Hemisphere and the organisation bestowed on him both a life membership and the honorary vice president position.
Valerie Millington, a subsequent general manager, in a letter supporting his nomination for a Queen’s Birthday honour in 2012, said that Vaughan was pivotal to the Fieldays’ success.
‘‘Without Vaughan, it is my belief it [the Fieldays] may have well stayed a good idea that really did not take off. It was his tenacity and drive that made it possible and allowed it to grow. He was fearless in the face of bureaucracy. If he was determined for something to happen, he made sure it happened.’’
For the first three years, Vaughan, a successful farmer and innovator, worked unpaid alongside wife Auriel, who acted as secretary, from a room off the lounge in their Newcastle Road property. Exhibitor packs and programmes were compiled on the lounge floor.
A driven and hardworking man, Vaughan was no stranger to the many mundane tasks that went into building Fieldays – in 1969, he was charged with laying out and supervising the location of the exhibition area.
Vaughan was born near Greytown, a rural area in Kwazulu-Natal, South Africa.
He emigrated to this country in 1954, met Auriel on the boat out, and married a year later.
In June 1955, despite having been warned against such a purchase, Vaughan and Auriel bought an undeveloped peat farm on Piako Road near Gordonton, with a 90 per cent mortgage. The 40ha block was the cheapest he could afford. It provided many lessons that were the foundation for his later farm advisory business. There was certainly no spare cash, and until they could afford a relocatable Lockwood, the couple lived in a small ex-Ministry of Works hut.
Vaughan explained their decision to Farmer’s Weekly shortly after he was awarded his ONZM.
‘‘I was told by an ex-navy bloke, ‘Farm anywhere within 40 miles of Hamilton and you would not go wrong.’
‘‘We were told the first three blokes to farm a peat block would go broke. However, I learned from a Dutch peat expert the key requirements were shallow drains, deep cultivation and lots of lime.’’
In five years, Vaughan revolutionised the management of peat, particularly the avoidance of deep drains, which could dry out the land. In his first year, 28 cows were milked. The following year, he borrowed £100 to purchase an adjacent 20 hectares, some of which was so soft, it could not be walked on. Despite the odds, by 1959, the couple were milking 90 cows. The farm was now outperforming Waikato farms with better soil and was named by the New Zealand Dairy Exporters as one of the Waikato’s most improved.
In 1964, Vaughan employed a 29 per cent sharemilker, extending this to 50 per cent in 1966, when the couple moved into Hamilton, where they planned to retire from farming. Vaughan’s story, however, would be woefully incomplete without mention of his innovative ideas and inventions.
He sold or earned royalties from 20 inventions developed on or about his farm. These started in 1957 with a spinner drain digger for use on wet, soft peat, and went on to include the chisel plough, a grader blade, a silage loader, improvements to the herringbone milking shed, and a bulk fertiliser spreader, among many others.
Many of his inventions, such as the spinner, initially were turned down by companies which said they would not work and had to be built by Vaughan himself.
For example, the chisel plough, which he invented in 1958, was used for cultivating deeply into peat. Other Piako Road farmers saw the results and Vaughan sold 12 such ploughs before a manufacturer stepped in and made them under licence.
In similar vein, there were many doubters of his straight-rail innovation for the standard herringbone milking shed, with two front rails to stop cows seeing the milkers, and steel nib walls, all ideas later commonly used. He built some for his fellow farmers and designed one for the Massey University farm dairy.
By 1968, Vaughan had reinvented himself as an agricultural businessman and it was in this role that he visited the Australian National Fieldays to promote equipment being made for him under licence.
From there it was a short step to his appointment as foundation member of the NZ Fieldays in 1969. Although he initially committed to just 12 months with the fledgling organisation, he was to give more than 12 years of inspirational service before resigning in 1982. Then he joined Gallagher as group marketing manager and international representative. His tenacity was well known and he was invited to look after Africa Asia, and what was then the Communist Bloc for the group.
As international marketing manager, he produced what Sir William Gallagher described as excellent results. ‘‘Due to his efforts, Gallagher became the leading brand of electric fencing in many markets, particularly South Africa, many countries in Europe, Japan, and parts of North America.’’
By 1984 international travel had got the better of him and he retired. Again. It was at this point he and Auriel swapped their 150-acre dairy farm for a rundown but larger one close to town on Greenhill Road, Puketaha. It did not take long before their improvements were noticed, and one day, three top Ruakura scientists visited to see what exactly it was they were doing to so dramatically lift the performance.
Key components were adequate lime, balanced fertilisers, drainage, chisel ploughing, soluble minerals developed to go in the animals’ drinking water and electric fencing that enabled intensive pasture management. And earthworms. These were Auriel’s secret weapon, which she bred at home long before earthworm farms became a feature on hardware store shelves. She spread the worms on cowpats down the middle of each paddock. In 1985, Vaughan joined De Laval as a marketing consultant developing new products, a role he held for 18 years. During this time, he was invited by Sir David Beattie to contribute to the Ministerial Working Party on Science and Technology.
All the while his consulting grew, and his pasture grazing website (grazinginfo.com). He worked with about 20 international companies, presented 200 seminars in those countries and helped roughly 250 farmers around the world to increase their profitability. Vaughan was always grateful that he made the move to emigrate to New Zealand and did what he could to support others to follow suit. He was always passionately supportive of New Zealand grass-fed animals and assisted agricultural exporters to increase the volume of New Zealand export earnings.
Vaughan was married to Auriel, who died in 2017 and whom he missed terribly. He was father, father-in-law, and grandad of Margaret and Jeff Kirk, Libby Jones and Pete Hames, and Sue and Ian Dobbs, Emma, Louise and Steve Way, Philip, Stephen, Craig, Sarah, Rita and Maggie.
Sources: Gordon Patterson, Valerie Millington, Sir William Gallagher, Doug Baldwin, Farmer’s Weekly A Life Story tells of a New Zealander who helped to shape the Waikato community. If you know of someone whose life story should be told, please email Charles.riddle@wintec.ac.nz