Tony is the owner of NZ Farm Life Media. His career in agricultural journalism started in 1987 after he completed seven years work as a stock agent in the Canterbury region and began a two-year stint reporting on livestock sales and agricultural commodity export markets for a national farming magazine.

After a four year stint in Melbourne working on the state’s rural weekly title, Tony returned to New Zealand in 1993 to edit The New Zealand Farmer newspaper. In late 1997 he formed Country-Wide Publications Limited which bought Country-Wide, a monthly tabloid farming title delivered to lower North Island farmers. Over the following 12 years, the business grew to publish several farming titles and was sold to NZX in 2009.

Tony started NZ Farm Life Media to buy back Country-Wide and The NZ Dairy Exporter in October 2016. Tony lives just outside Feilding township on a 6ha lifestyle block. He also has a stake in hill country sheep and beef property near Alfredton in Wairarapa in partnership with his daughter and son-in-law.

2021 – The Rongo Award. Over seven issues Country-Wide investigated the facts of regenerative agriculture, diving deep into the science, to get the reader as close as possible to the truth.

2019 – Country-Wide – The Rongo Award, for its series on the impact on communities and farms of the surge in tree planting