The story of Farmgate couldn’t be more New Zealand. One day, while visiting a farmer for work, a good friend of ours heard the story about how this stressed-out farmer watched his four wheel motorbike being driven down a race on his farm. Assuming it was his wife, he thought nothing of it until he later realized the farm bike he relied on for work all day long had been stolen in broad daylight.

 

As a result, in late 2021 a team of three embarked on the task of reducing rural crime initially through its FarmARMr system that integrated barrier arms for physical deterrents at the farm gate with license plate cameras and barrier arms. This lead to being part of the 2021 Fieldays innovation awards. In the aftermath of Cyclone Gabrielle, Farmgate gifted surveillance and license plate recognition cameras into a local Hawkes Bay community to combat rising looting and crime. This was the perhaps the true beginnings of Farmgate and has now lead to the  whole neighboring community being mapped out with license plate cameras for vehicle tracking and crime prevention. 

 

The team soon realized that combatting the rise of rural crime required a collective effort by farmers, rural people and whole communities. And so the vision to reduce rural crime widened to what is now called the Rural Crime Reduction Strategy using the latest tech, license plate cameras, community participation and saturation of roads and communities with deterrents. What once cost thousands of dollars for equipment, aerials, cabling and installation can be done DIY for a fraction of the price. This combined with the ability to install anywhere has now become the hallmark of Farmgate unique approach to rural security solutions.

 

Following the trial or many different options for rural properties at different price points, new product offerings not previously available have been added to the make the current Farmgate offerings in 2025 that are ideally suited to rural settings. Then following a difficult trading environment in the 2023-24 years the business (assets and intangibles) was sold in June 2025 to Graeme Evans -Graeme being one of the original contractors and is well versed in the Farmgate products, solutions and offerings. 

​

​ ​The Farmgate vision and mission stays the same -a camera at every rural entrance or LPR community camera at the start of every rural road or community! Our approach which we call our Rural Crime Reduction Strategy is three-fold. All three are needed to create safer communities:

 

1. ​License plate COMMUNITY cameras on roadsides in and out of a community or at key locations (Community project -MY COMMUNITY.​

2. SATURATING roads (25-30% coverage) with Farmgate signs and cameras at entrances of rural properties (Roads and neighbours -MY ROAD).

3. Adding extra camera on PERSONAL properties to cover key assets like vats, diesel, sheds and the home. (Individual property owners -MY FARM).

​

Farmgate operates from Hamilton and South Auckland servicing the greater Waikato, Hauraki, Bay of Plenty,  Taranaki, Hawkes Bay and South Auckland regions with a growing network of installers. We welcome you to join us.