Muller Station

In this episode, Jo Grigg speaks with Steve Satterthwaite, who farms Muller Station in Marlborough’s Awatere Valley with his family. Their low-input, environmentally focused approach has created a resilient high country system balancing fine wool, meat with their dual-purpose merino and biodiversity values.

Sarah Perriam-Lampp also speaks with ecologist David Norton, who helped develop Muller’s integrated farm management plan. He highlights the need for long-term, landscape-scale solutions to threats like wilding pines, deer, and goats.

Muller Station has won the Marlborough Farmer of the Year title. It’s not just off the back of their highly profitable sheep, but
for creating a pasture powerhouse out of hieracium- and rabbit-infested country. With Steve Satterthwaite at the helm for a half-century, Muller has taken up the best of the new and safeguards the cherished high-country traditions of the past. Words Jo Grigg, Photos Jim Tannock.