Surfing for Farmers and Rural Riders have merged under a new charitable trust called For Farmers, pooling their back-end infrastructure so both can keep scaling to more regions around the country.

“We saw Rural Riders was trying to achieve what we were trying to achieve just in a different format,” newly appointed general manager Dom Huxley says.

“Instead of them duplicating the back end, it made a hell of a lot of sense just to work together.”

The merger brings about 41 locations under one structure, 25 surfing and 16 mountain biking. The value is systems refined across seven or eight years.

“A lot of people don’t quite understand that at the back end of a charity there’s a lot of boxes that you need to tick, particularly when you work with big commercial sponsors,” he says.

He says that there is actually science behind the mental reset, the Biophilia hypothesis.

“When you’re in the water, and you’re getting smashed in the face by a wave, you don’t have much time to think about anything else, which helps your body dump cortisol.”

He says they are open to other groups plugging into the same structure.

“We just want to work with good roosters out there, who are trying to do good things in communities.”

CountryWide CONNECT with Andy Thompson & Sarah Perriam-Lampp is our daily rural show livestreamed from 11am-1pm. Visit country-wide.co.nz on how to watch/listen or download the CountryWide CONNECT mobile app, available on Apple iOS and Android.