The Country Fast Five: Meet Karl Davis

Karl Davis making an early morning coffee from the back of his vehicle.
New Zealanders often hear about farmers being the backbone of the country but do we really know what makes the primary industries tick?
With that in mind, The Country’s Kem Ormond has compiled a list of questions for everyday Kiwis in agriculture.
This week it’s the turn of Karl Davis, who sells rural real estate in the Thames Valley.
Davis grew up on a dairy farm in Waitakaruru, played lots of sports, and enjoyed growing up in a rural community – many of his friends from when he was 4 years old are still his friends today.
He learned his trade from the godfather of Waikato rural real estate, Mike Fraser Jones, and auction and management gurus, Stephen Shale and Mark Dawe respectively.
A large chunk of his rural real estate work has come from relationships made from a long rugby career and the trust, culture and friendships formed from rugby, at club, sub-union and provincial levels.
Davis supports a large number of sporting organisations.
He believes sport is essential in building better, more rounded humans, from a young age to old age – particularly team sports.
If you would like to be part of The Country Fast Five series you can get in touch with Kem at [email protected]. Or you can fill in the form here.
What’s in your shed?
Lots of tools, love doing a bit of farm DIY and having the right tool for the job.
A dartboard, spacies and pinball machine and table tennis table, no cars in the shed.
Also, love chainsaws – have six of those.
Speakers, I have a huge range of speakers – over 50 of them.
What is your most New Zealand moment/memory?
Semifinal at Eden park, Black Caps vs South Africa, was an amazing live contest with the Hairy Javelin smashing a six over long-on.
The crowd were standing and screaming for the last hour straight, was amazing to be part of it.
Been to hundreds of rugby games – we are just not as emotional as spectators in rugby, always been like that.
What does our landscape mean to you?
I am privileged to work in the Thames Valley and North Waikato, which has a unique and contrasting landscape with a huge diversity of soil types.
From white sand beaches in the Coromandel peninsula to marine clay, peat soils and volcanic ash soils in the Hauraki District.
With river silts, various clays, peat and limestone country of the Waikato district – with the contour varying from vast flat plains to rugged hill country – it is an area I call home and am proud to represent.
What’s the biggest opportunity for New Zealand’s primary industries?
To provide a source-to-plate solution.
The sheep/beef industry is moving in that direction with several success stories.
I think that is also a great opportunity in the dairy industry if our co-op can find better ways to get value-added products into overseas markets or on a smaller scale, farmers provide niche products to local markets.
What should agriculture’s priorities be?
Being profitable, but balancing that with the environment.
Get rid of the road cones in our industry.