Agriculture - Market Place

Marlborough had perfect growing conditions and was noted for the excellent quality of its harakeke (flax).  Harakeke has long been used by Maori for a wide range of purposes from to the making of traps and fishing nets and the weaving of whāriki (mats) and kete (baskets). Harakeke is also important for the production of textiles, for example, muka, a prepared flax fibre, is frequently used as the base for kākahu (clothing) or korowai (cloaks).

European settlers soon saw its uses too and bartered with Māori for flax ropes and weaving in return for European goods.  In the 1830’s, Te Rauparaha and others traded harakeke for muskets and gunpowder. 

Marlborough’s first mill was built in Marshlands, in the lower Wairau, in 1870. From there, 11 mills sprung up around the district. Flax fibre was processed and exported for use in ropes, carpets and woolsacks. By the 1870s Marlborough was an important participant in NZ’s flax industry – our biggest export sector by far until wool and frozen mutton kicked in late in the 19th century.  Marlborough’s flax  industry peaked from 1901 to 1918, with a record seasonal output of 7150 bales in 1903, then dwindled.

The settlement of Marlborough was based on the quintessential NZ animal – the sheep.  While many of the great sheep stations and farms of the past have declined or disappeared, sheep and beef farming still form a significant piece of Marlborough’s agricultural story. 

Sheep were first introduced to the region in 1846, herded from Nelson to the upper Wairau Valley. That same year, the Flaxbourne Estate sheep station on Marlborough’s East Coast was also established when Charles Clifford, William Vavasour and Frederick Weld drove 3000 sheep purchased from Australia, from Port Underwood to Flaxbourne: "Crossed the Bluff River with sheep.  Had to throw them all into the water, a day and a half's hard work," wrote Weld in his diary. By 1853, there were more than 57 large sheep stations covering more than one million acres.

By 1853, more than 57 large sheep stations covered more than one million acres of Marlborough land. The stations’ names remain familiar today: The Vernon Run, Ugbrooke Station, Meadowbank Estate and The Molesworth were among them.

As farming grew, rabbits were released for food and sport in the late 1850s but quickly became a plague. Many farms were made worthless by the rabbits, combined with sheep illness and falling wool prices, and they remain a problem today.

More large stations disappeared when the New Zealand Government acquired farmland for settlement. By 1915, the Crown had divided 22 Marlborough estates into 550 properties.

Low-lying Marlborough farms also grew barley and wheat, clover, lucerne and ryegrass, pulses and vegetables, and some livestock. Most dairying took place around Blenheim to supply the town, but also in Kaikōura, Rai Valley, Linkwater and Koromiko.

Since the first commercial grape vines were planted in 1973, Marlborough’s reputation as one of the world’s top wine producing regions, and New Zealand’s largest wine region, has seen the landscape change largely to vineyards. Some sheep and beef farming can still be seen, along with orchards and beehives.

Aquaculture has also become a large part of Marlborough’s farming industry, with mussel, salmon and oyster farms throughout the Marlborough Sounds producing seafood that is sought-after globally.