> ## Content Index > Fetch the complete content index at: https://www.organicfoodtogether.nz/llms.txt > Use this file to discover other available public pages before exploring further. # Harry Mowbray Calls Organics the Most Extraordinary Journey of His Life - URL: https://www.organicfoodtogether.nz/harry-mowbray-helped-build-zurus-first-balloon-ask-him-about-soil/ - Published: 2026-10-21T17:31:00.000Z - Updated: 2026-10-21T17:31:00.000Z - Description: Harry Mowbray helped his son build the hot-air balloon that started Zuru, and saved the factory where Glaxo began. But the thing he calls the most extraordinary journey of his life is his certified organic dairy farm near Tokoroa, and why organic farmers should be paid more. - Author: Luke Nicholas - Tags: dairy, Organic farming, people, gene technology, Waikato, Fonterra On 14 October, Harry Mowbray went on [Reality Check Radio](https://rcr.media/episodes/harry-mowbray-multi-business-owner-organic-farmer-strategic-voting-and-the-fight-to-preserve-our-organic-future/?ref=organicfoodtogether.nz) to talk about the electoral system. By the end of the hour he was talking about comfrey. His cows won't touch it, he told host Paul Brennan, until they're sick. Then they go looking for it. That's the thing about Harry Mowbray. Most New Zealanders know him, if they know him at all, as the father of the Zuru billionaires. Some know him this month as a man with opinions about MMP. Fewer know he has been farming organically south of Tokoroa for well over a decade, and that he has argued for organic farmers in public, on the record, for at least nine years. He calls the move to organics "the most extraordinary journey of my life." ## The engineer Harry Mowbray was born and educated in Hamilton, and completed a science degree at Waikato University, according to [a 2020 Institute of Directors event profile](https://www.iod.org.nz/all-events/waikato-branch-event/waikatos-own-toy-story-and-agm?ref=organicfoodtogether.nz). He graduated debt-free and owning a Mark 2 Jaguar, the same profile says. Which is more than most of us managed. His background is physics and chemistry. He worked as an industrial chemist at NZ Forest Products' Kinleith mill, then started his own consulting and engineering company serving the pulp and paper industry, according to [evidence he gave to Waikato Regional Council in 2018](https://www.waikatoregion.govt.nz/assets/WRC/Council/Policy-and-Plans/HR/OJI-Fibre-Solutions-NZ-6-Harry-Mowbray-FINAL.pdf?ref=organicfoodtogether.nz). While at Kinleith he bought a run-down farm, the IoD profile says. Then his son Mat, aged 10, wanted to build a model hot-air balloon. Harry helped. It won a string of competitions and science fairs, the IoD profile says, and became the first product of a company first called Guru Toys, later Zuru. The Mowbray siblings borrowed $20,000 from their parents to take the business offshore, [Forbes reported](https://www.forbes.com.au/news/entrepreneurs/inside-the-billion-dollar-toy-empire-built-by-the-mowbray-siblings/?ref=organicfoodtogether.nz). It is the only outside money Zuru has taken, according to Forbes. Nick and Mat Mowbray topped the 2026 NBR Rich List with an estimated $20 billion, [1News reported](https://www.1news.co.nz/2026/06/15/what-to-know-as-nbr-releases-its-2026-rich-list/?ref=organicfoodtogether.nz). The balloon kits were first made in a shed on the family farm, [Foundr reported](https://foundr.com/articles/building-a-business/nick-mowbray-zuru?ref=organicfoodtogether.nz). Everything in this story keeps coming back to the farm. ## The factory The Mowbray family bought the derelict Matangi Dairy Factory near Hamilton in 2003, [waikato.com reported in 2018](https://web.archive.org/web/20220524211142/waikato.com/news/article/2018/06/07/backbone-of-new-zealand-s-history-preserved-in-the-waikato). By 2020 it housed 28 businesses, the IoD profile says. A demolition company offered to replace the Glaxo building almost free, in exchange for its kauri and heart rimu, according to the waikato.com story. The family turned it down. Among the first things they found were the site's original architectural drawings, stuffed in old rubbish bags, the story says. "The money that we've put in to this place would build the buildings that we've got onsite three times over," Andrew Mowbray told waikato.com. "But that's not what we wanted to do; we wanted to preserve it rather than demolish and rebuild." Its 1919 Glaxo building was described at the time as built to handle the largest quantity of milk under one roof in the world, according to [Heritage New Zealand's listing](https://www.heritage.org.nz/the-list/details/4935?ref=organicfoodtogether.nz). The factory closed on 31 May 1987, Heritage New Zealand records. Heritage New Zealand's own history of the site draws partly on a restoration proposal written by Harry and his son Andrew, the listing shows. As of September 2026, Harry was still the site's owner and was personally leading public tours of it, [Matangi Link reported](https://matangilink.nz/2026/09/12/matangi-factory-site-tour-11-a-m-26-september-2026-all-welcome/?ref=organicfoodtogether.nz). ## The farm Harry's farm sits on State Highway 1 south of Tokoroa, in the Waikato River catchment, according to his 2018 evidence. In 2018 it was about 875 hectares, run by the same partnership since 1986, his evidence said. It milked 650 to 700 cows. When the partnership bought it, the pasture was mostly browntop, infested with ragwort, nodding thistle, blackberry and gorse, he told the council. They converted it to organic over about three years. By 2018 it was in its ninth year as an organic farm, but Harry said it took until the last three of those years, "after the inevitable trial and error," before they were managing it with confidence. The list of what changed is long: - No water-soluble fertiliser and no urea. - Fish-based fertilisers and compost tea to feed the soil biology. - No antibiotics, which is required for the export markets they were certified for. - A weed spray made from a plant extract. - No bought-in feed unless it was certified organic. That's from his 2018 evidence. His 2017 submission to the same council is blunter about what it cost. The farm had to cull heavily because it could no longer use penicillin, and the conversion ran to "millions of dollars," [he wrote](https://www.waikatoregion.govt.nz/assets/WRC/Council/Policy-and-Plans/HR/Submissions/Submission-to-Proposed-Plan-Change-1-Hartwood-Farms.pdf?ref=organicfoodtogether.nz). Part of the land was handed back to nature, according to the 2018 evidence: - About 90 hectares of mature native bush. - A further 40 hectares of regenerating scrub. - About 10 hectares of stream margins retired and planted. - 3,000 trees planted in a single season. The farm trades as Hartwood Farms, the name on his 2017 submission. As of 2 October 2026, Hartwood Farms on SH1 South, Tokoroa is listed as an active certified organic operation on [AsureQuality's public register](https://asurequality.com/services/auditing-and-certification/asurequality-organic-certification/find-organic-products-2?ref=organicfoodtogether.nz). *(Combines the register and the 2017 submission.)* The register lists 465 certified hectares out of 478.6, covering raw milk, live cattle, beef and feed. It is certified for organic export to the EU, the UK, Switzerland, Taiwan, China, the United States and Canada, the register shows. ## Biology, biology, biology Ask Harry how organic dairy works and you get a soil science lecture. A good one. "In organics, it's biology, biology, biology," he told Reality Check Radio. His argument goes like this. Every pasture plant has its own partnership with particular fungi and bacteria in the soil. The microbes feed the plant minerals, and the plant pays them in sugars. Pour soluble fertiliser on and the plant stops paying, and the microbes die back. He laid all of this out in his 2018 evidence. A diverse pasture has roots at many depths, so it has living biology at many depths, catching nitrogen from cow urine before it leaches. A ryegrass monoculture can't do that, he argued. On air in 2026 he described pasture with 40 species and plants rooting down to lucerne depth. He mentioned digging holes around the farm to check how far down the roots and the biology go. He still sounds surprised by it. When he went organic, he said, he expected to be surrounded by bearded, sandal-wearing tree-huggers. Instead he found some of the most intellectual, deep-thinking people he'd met. He had to throw out a lot of the science he'd been trained in and start again. That's quite an admission from a physics and chemistry graduate. ## Punished for being clean Here is the part of Harry's story that should make anyone who cares about rivers wince. In 2017 and 2018, Waikato Regional Council was working through Plan Change 1, known as Healthy Rivers, its plan to cut nutrient pollution in the Waikato and Waipā catchments. The plan's nitrogen limits were tied to each farm's modelled leaching, called its Nitrogen Reference Point. Harry's organic farm had a modelled figure of 19 kg of nitrogen per hectare per year, according to his evidence. He described it as "significantly lower than most conventional dairy farming operations." He argued the real figure was lower still. Overseer, the model used, doesn't account for deeper soil biology. Overseer doesn't count worms. Harry does. The low number turned into a problem. A farm's right to leach was becoming part of its value. His farm had been on the market for 18 months with little interest, and he was advised the low leaching figure was why, he said in his evidence. He estimated the plan had cut about $3 million off the farm's value. "The bottom line is that the very best operators from an environmental point of view are the ones most severely affected by the present proposals," he told the council. His 2017 submission was less diplomatic. The plan, he wrote, "screws us over big time." He proposed a fix: let any AsureQuality- or BioGro-certified farm revert to the district average leaching allowance if it chose. That way organic farmers wouldn't lose equity for doing what everyone says they want. He said he had shared the idea with other organic farmers, and that they had written similar submissions. ## Pay organic farmers more Harry was one of the founding farmers of the Organic Dairy Hub, a farmer-owned organic co-operative, according to the IoD profile. By 2018 more than half of the North Island's 70 organic dairy farmers belonged to it, he told the council. The co-op went into solvent voluntary liquidation in late 2023, [dairynews.today reported](https://dairynews.today/global/news/waikato-based-organic-dairy-hub-enters-voluntary-liquidation.html?ref=organicfoodtogether.nz). On air, Harry described an organic conference where farmers were asked whether some of their payout could go to farmers converting. His answer: "Just pay us more, and then everyone will bend their backs to get over to being organic." The money is moving his way anyway. Fonterra paid a record final organic milk price of $14.13 per kilogram of milk solids for 2025/26, [Rural News reported](https://www.ruralnewsgroup.co.nz/dairy-news/dairy-general-news/record-organic-milk-price-fonterra-nz-2026?ref=organicfoodtogether.nz). Against a conventional price of $9.69, that's a premium of $4.44, roughly double the gap of the season before, as [we reported this month](https://www.organicfoodtogether.nz/fonterra-organic-milk-price-record-2026/). Organic is still under 1% of Fonterra's milk. Harry thinks the margin behind that premium is much bigger. He told Reality Check Radio that when Fonterra was selling its consumer brands, organics was earning around 40%, against single-digit margins on brands. We couldn't find a published figure to check that against. ## Leave it in the lab Harry describes himself as a scientist who loves science. On gene technology, his line is simple: "Leave it in the laboratory, guys." His worry is practical. Plants are promiscuous, he said, and GE pollen can travel kilometres. If his farm is contaminated and can't meet the American organic standard, "you have just destroyed my whole business," he said. That standard is not hypothetical for him. Hartwood Farms is certified to the USDA organic programme, the AsureQuality register shows. The Government's Gene Technology Bill stalled without New Zealand First's support, and its future depends on the election outcome, [Rural News reported](https://www.ruralnewsgroup.co.nz/dairy-news/dairy-general-news/record-organic-milk-price-fonterra-nz-2026?ref=organicfoodtogether.nz) in October. He also sees the opportunity. On a trip to the United States about two years ago, he said, three people who learned he was from New Zealand said the same two words back to him: GE free. ## Green in the middle Harry is, this election, also the man behind the Split Your Vote campaign, [reported by the Democracy Project](https://www.democracyproject.org.nz/p/democracy-briefing-the-rightwing?ref=organicfoodtogether.nz) and others. That's a different story, and plenty of outlets are telling it. His own description of himself is "blue on the outside," but "green in the middle." He would still like to put the ACT caucus in a helicopter, fly them to his farm, and show them how organic soil catches nitrate. *(His words on RCR, paraphrased.)* He also points people to Gavin Fisher, the Te Aroha farmer he calls "Mr Organic Dairy Farmer." Fisher was one of the first to supply Fonterra with organic milk, [according to the Organic Dairy Hub](https://www.scoop.co.nz/stories/BU2110/S00464.htm?ref=organicfoodtogether.nz). His farm is still certified with BioGro, the [BioGro register](https://biogroportal.powerappsportals.com/certified-products/?ref=organicfoodtogether.nz) shows. Walking Gavin's paddocks, Harry said, your feet wobble because of all the worm casts. The billionaire toy empire started with a balloon in a farm shed. The thing Harry wants to talk about is still in the paddock. --- ### Before you go If this was worth your time, [sign up free](https://www.organicfoodtogether.nz/#/portal/signup) to get the next one in your inbox. 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