ABOUT TIPU WHENUA

Right land use. Right place.
Right people. Clear North Star.

We help farmers become lighter on their feet — resilient, adaptable, and able to respond confidently as the world around them changes.

How We Started

Tipu Whenua was founded in 2015 by Alison Dewes after returning to New Zealand following 15 years farming in Australia, where droughts, fires and increasingly extreme weather had brought home just how vulnerable farming businesses can be to forces beyond their control. Back in New Zealand, Alison could see another challenge emerging: farming had intensified rapidly, input costs were rising, waterways were declining, and in many places we were asking too much of the land rather than matching land use to what the landscape could sustainably support.

Tipu Whenua grew from the belief that there was a better way — putting the right land use in the right place, reducing pressure on land, water, animals and people while maintaining profitable, productive farming businesses. Today, with climate volatility, changing markets and geopolitical uncertainty adding further pressure, that original idea is even more relevant: to rethink how we use our landscapes and help build farming systems that are resilient enough to thrive through change.

Why We Started

When Alison returned to New Zealand, she was completing a Master of Science in Ecology, exploring how productive farming could coexist with some of our most sensitive lakes, waterways and landscapes. Through that work she had the privilege of working alongside exceptional farmers who were proving that profitability and environmental stewardship were not opposing goals. These farmers were running highly productive, highly profitable businesses with remarkably low environmental footprints — in some cases a fraction of those of more conventional systems — by matching land use to the capability of the land, caring for their animals and continually challenging the way things had always been done.

It raised a simple question: what separates the best from the rest, and how do we share what they know? Tipu Whenua was created to find those leaders, innovators and "lighthouse farmers", understand what makes their systems work, and connect their knowledge with other farmers and communities. That philosophy has since grown into catchment leadership and regional collaboration, connecting farmers with trusted peers and accelerating the sharing of practical knowledge.

Underpinning it all is a longer-term view of farming and whenua: one grounded in kaitiakitanga, stewardship and responsibility to future generations, rather than simply purchasing land, intensifying it and moving on. More than a decade later, Tipu Whenua continues to learn from those leading the way and to help others see what is possible.

Our Mission

Our mission at Tipu Whenua is to help farmers become lighter on their feet — resilient, adaptable and able to respond confidently as the world around them changes. We help each farming business identify its own North Star and find the sweet spot where people, animals, land, environment and profitability are in balance. That means remaining curious, continually learning and building farming systems that can flex — intensifying where and when it makes sense, reducing pressure when conditions demand it, and adapting quickly without losing sight of the long-term direction of the business.

We do this by bringing together small, transdisciplinary teams tailored to each farm, landscape or catchment, drawing on expertise in farm systems, veterinary science, ecology, climate resilience, forestry, low-cost planting, strategy and, importantly, visionary farmers who are willing to share what they have learned with others. Like a highly skilled surgical team, we bring the right people around the table to diagnose the whole system, identify where change will have the greatest impact and restore balance and alignment. Ultimately, our goal is not to tell farmers what their future should look like, but to help them find their own North Star — and give them the knowledge, confidence and resilience to keep moving towards it.