Surfing for the soul
Bay farmers are learning to take the beach back to the paddock.
Words Hayley Barnett
It’s fair to say the past few years haven’t been kind to our farming and horticulture community. Economic conditions and labour shortages have really taken their toll on a once-thriving industry. But a small group of people have been working hard to bring a little bit of sunshine back into the lives of the people holding together our country’s backbone, with an initiative called Surfing for Farmers.
The idea is self-explanatory – getting more farmers and orchard workers out onto the beach and into the waves. The free programme runs over the whole of summer and offers surf lessons and an evening out for the whole family to enjoy.
“The theme this year is to take the beach back to the paddock,” says BOP board member Sarah Hickey. “We want to encourage anyone working on a farm or in the horticulture industry to get out there into the surf then take that experience back to work, talk about it with their colleagues, or just feel better in their day-to-day life. We want that ripple effect to happen once you’re off the beach, to spread that good feeling.”
This will be the fourth season that Surfing for Farmers has run in Mount Maunganui, but the programme itself has been running since 2018. The founder, Stephen Thomson, who worked in the farming industry himself, started the project after watching a documentary on returned soldiers using surfing as PTSD therapy.
“Something just clicked and he was like, ‘I could do that here for farmers’,” explains Sarah.
A year later, Sarah was sitting with a friend, who had been teaching her how to surf, when they came across a newspaper article about Stephen.
“That’s when I realised that, hey, we could do something here in the Mount,” she says. “It kind of snowballed from there and now we’re running in 28 locations around New Zealand.”
Each region operates slightly differently, but the main aim is the same. In the Bay, friends and family of the team, who surf themselves, volunteer their time to coach, and the boards and wetsuits are borrowed from local surf schools.
“It’s about sharing knowledge and getting everyone out here,” says Sarah. “It’s really fun. We always have a barbecue afterwards, so it turns into quite a community event.”
The feedback, says Sarah, has been overwhelmingly positive. “We’ve definitely had some amazing stories. We've had one guy who was a farmer his whole life but had stopped working. He came along for one session and got hooked on surfing. And that became his way to still be connected to the industry. Now, he's retired and this has become a hobby that himself and his son do together.
“It’s about connections and people. They come along, and then suddenly, three weeks in, they've got this new surfboard and wetsuit and they're grabbing their neighbours and inviting them to come down. Or they're discussing things on the farm and giving each other tips and tricks because it's a real mixture of young and old. We like to get the children involved too.”
And that ripple effect Sarah was talking about earlier comes into play throughout not just the farming community, but the wider community as well.
“Farmers’ families often tell us that their dads have come home much happier,” says Sarah. “We had a daycare sponsor give us some money and we were like, ‘What's a daycare doing sponsoring Surfing for Farmers?’ And they said it was because they notice that the kids are happier. When the dads have been out for a surf, the kids are happier at the daycare. So it's a win-win for everyone.”
But it’s not just the men getting amongst the waves. “It is mainly men but we do get quite a few women. One night we had females outnumber the males, which was a really cool night.”
So far, around 4000 to 5000 farmers are taking part every year, and Sarah says they’d like to increase that number substantially. “Our goal for 2026 is that by the end of summer 2026, we will have moved the needle for 25,000 people.”
To participate, all you need to do is turn up at any session and register. Session times are posted on the website for each region. “Just show up. That's all you need to do. We cover the rest.”