Aquaculture may look different from sheep and beef, but on Aotea Harbour a King Country family has been farming the water for decades, as Jon Rawlinson discovered.
A family affair, from left Kelly, Ross, Janine and Georgia Dockery all play a role in running Aotea Marine Farms. Photo Aquaculture NZ
King Country Farmer February 2026
There may always be a place for terrestrial farming, but interest in aquaculture is steadily rising.
For Kelly Dockery, sustainability officer at Kāwhia‑based Aotea Marine Farms, it’s simply the family business she grew up with.
The Aotea Harbour farm has been owned and operated by Ross and Janine Dockery since the 1980s.
With the help of their daughters Kelly, Georgia and Eilish, the family produces a substantial amount of food per hectare, Kelly says.
“We farm a lot in a very small space – about 7.5 hectares – but that produces hundreds of tonnes of food,” says Kelly.
“In general, the New Zealand mussel industry is super green – green-lipped mussels are among the most sustainable forms of meat-based protein in the world.”
Toddler Kelly Dockery stands in front of her parents Ross and Janine atop the first ever “mussel barge” on Aotea Harbour with mussel pioneer Dave Morrison, extreme left, unknown scientists and to the right her late grandparents Edith and Reg Dockery and Kaiaua mussel farmer Mark Aislabie. Photo: Aotea Marine Farms.
Mussels deliver much bang for the buck – protein-rich, they don’t require feeding, they have a relatively small carbon footprint and they even clean the water around them as they grow.
While the Dockery farm is more a nursery than a heavyweight mussel builder, its produce is in high demand.
“We grow wild-caught spat, basically little baby mussels,” Kelly says.
“After they spawn, they drift and swim. We put kilometres of rope into the water, collecting the spat that attaches to it, and let it grow for a few months before pulling it of the water. It’s then sent up to Coromandel.”
Ross Dockery. Photo Aquaculture NZ
A family affair – LtoR: Kelly, Janine and Georgia Dockery all play a role in running Aotea Marine Farms. Photo Aquaculture NZ
A lack of home-grown spat has required Coromandel farms to rely on Kelly and co to supply them with spat, rope and all.
“We don’t have to collect seaweed with spat on it and ship it to Coromandel; they just need to put the ropes back in the water, strip them once or twice and reseed so the mussels are more spread out as they grow.”
Land-based runoff hasn’t been a major issue for the farm, with Aotea Harbour’s tidal nature helping maintain water quality.
“The water quality in Aotea Harbour always seems to be quite a bit better than Kāwhia because there are fewer rivers running into it, and it’s super tidal so nothing stays sitting there too long,” Kelly says.
“Also, our mussels still have another 18 months to grow after they leave here and they’re tested before they go to market.”
It is a family affair for, Kelly, left, and Georgia Dockery who both play a role in running Aotea Marine Farms.
Although pine forestry is often seen as a cleaner land use, Kelly says heavy rain events can bring significant debris and waste down into the harbour.
“There is a lot of forestry, so when there are big weather events there’s definitely waste floating down and the water’s just gross.”
Already more sustainable than many other forms of farming, aquaculture may still have a little room for improvement. Aotea has welcomed researchers and, with two university degrees of her own, Kelly appears happy to help.
Aotea Marine Farms. Photo Kelly Dockery
“We’ve been involved with heaps of companies, organisations and universities over the years. At the moment, we do quite a lot with the University of Auckland,” she says.
“They’re studying ways to harvest tidal energy which would benefit us all.”
Even the smallest details matter.
“I’ve had a bit to do with testing types of renewable rope, made from coconut or flax fibres. They haven’t quite sorted 100 per cent natural-based rope, so those could be a bit greener, and we need fuel for our boats, but apart from that you can’t really get much better.”
As pressure grows on all forms of food production, lessons learned on Aotea Harbour show how the King Country continues to play a quiet but important role in feeding the country – on land and on water.
Aotea Marine Farms is a mussel spat catching farm in Kawhia with a notable tidal flow. Pictured here are baby mussel seeds caught on ropes hanging across the floats. Photo: Auckland University
Mussel farming in Aotea Harbour. Photo: University of Auckland.
