2008 Winners

2008 Gallagher Innovation Award

Richard and Anna Hill

Flock Hill and Darfield

The Hills have established a successful farming business that allows them to make the most of current market conditions and their combined skills and experience while they progress towards their goal of farm ownership.

Richard and Anna lease five properties – a total of 16,000ha – finishing crossbred, halfbred and merino lambs, and beef cattle. They also take in around 1000 dairy grazers in the winter and alongside all that they are building up their own sheep and beef capital stock. The crossbred lambs are fattened for between one to three months and the fine wool lambs are wintered over, shorn in the spring then sold after they’ve “bolted away” post shearing. Three full-time farm staff are employed.

Four of the farms they lease, including the first one they took on 10 years ago, are in the Darfield area. The fifth property is just under an hour west of these, a high country tussock run they took on nearly four years ago. Flock Hill Station is a 14,600ha property and it’s where Richard and Anna have lived with their children Georgie (13), Sarah (12), Charlotte (10) and Jack (7) for nearly three years.

The award judges were impressed with the way the Hills approach the management of their large-scale business, both in the field and their administration. In particular the addition of Flock Hill into the mix applied pressure to their systems, but the judges noted the Hills are set up with the flexibility to take on additional lease blocks that come their way.

Richard acknowledges this, saying: “We went from 3500 stock units to 20,000 in under a year, it all happened very quickly.”

This couple are drawing hugely from their backgrounds to make their business work. Anna has a degree in marketing and economics and got a “great grounding” when she spent her early working years for top agricultural accountant Pita Alexander.

Christchurch born, Richard developed a love for the high country on horse treks as a boy with his family.

After stints at Lincoln, mustering, doing his o/e – where much of the work he took on was agricultural – and, with Anna, farm managing up the Rakaia Gorge, Richard set up a fencing business in the Darfield area. Soon after they added scanning to their service and those years of operation are what Richard and Anna acknowledge they draw from most as they operate and build their present business.

“When you are scanning every day, you are right at the production end of things,” says Richard. “We don’t have much need for a farm advisor, because I’ve been getting advice, and seeing how things work, from two or three farmers every day for years.”

They took on their first lease block after winning a tender while still scanning. Selling the scanning business, and ensuring it was in good heart, was a two-year process. In the meantime they successfully tendered for another lease block but the three subsequent properties have been secured by direct contact – the Hills have established a good reputation.

“For a successful lease to work there’s got to be something for both parties,” says Richard. “Mining a place is definitely not the way we go.”

The judges noted the Hills have a responsible attitude towards weeds and wilding pines on the lease farms.

The Hills see plenty of scope for Flock Hill and currently have a development plan and working strategy, including the sustainable management of natural resources, on the table with the owners of the station.

What the judges said…

• Large scale mixed farming with the business based on farm leasing.
• Development of an integrated stock finishing system to make best use of soil type and climate, utilizing both high country and flat land finishing blocks.
• Comprehensive planning and monitoring for environmental management of a high country farm.

2008 BFEA Land and Life Award

Bruce and Lyn Nell

Middle Rock

Up the Rakaia Gorge, Bruce and Lyn Nell combine sheep farming with running tourism and plant nursery businesses, and a good slice of community contribution.

Sustainability, and the long-term viability of all of the above are priorities for this couple.

Middle Rock Station is 1000ha of rolling tussock with 900ha available for grazing. Around one third of the property is in cultivated paddocks. Bruce’s father drew a larger Middle Rock in a ballot in 1950. Bruce and Lyn have been farming the home block for the past 30 years, bringing up their three (now adult) children James, Olivia and Charlotte there.

It’s a “great playground” say the couple. Rakaia River makes up five kilometres of the farm boundary; Lake Coleridge is 10 minutes away and Lake Ida 20 minutes.

For the past 20 years Lyn Nell has been building the farm tour business into what is now a busy sideline, and a handy supplement to farm income. All tours are underpinned with a strong environmental message and the large garden and alpine plant nursery “Middle Rock High Country Perennials” Lyn takes care of pleasantly surprises visitors.

“Yes it’s busy, but these are the things we are passionate about,” she says.

The farm tours for overseas visitors provide a slice of rural life with a spectacular high country backdrop. Tours for the domestic market are also becoming popular; Lyn’s significant knowledge of local history is enjoyed.

Some years ago she wrote up the area’s history, prompted by the realisation they had that the influx of people who came to the area, and changed the face of the community forever in the 1950s, were “disappearing or dying off”.

Tour companies like that Middle Rock is just an hour west of Christchurch, and the well-established and maintained farm tracks make it accessible to their buses in all weather, “except of course major snowstorms, and we get a few of those,” says Lyn.

Bruce sagely calls the climate “variable”. It can be harsh in the winter, which is why he still blade shears, and extremely dry in the summer. Corriedales work well on Middle Rock. Bruce points out, “this summer has proved once again that we’ve got the right breed”.

For the past 10 years their stocking policy has been steady at wintering 5000 ewes and 3500 lamb/hoggets. The lambs are kept for 10 to 12 months because Bruce has found the Corriedales grow out well given that time.

Every paddock feeds into a laneway for ease of management. Bruce does all the farm work with the help of a part-timer.

Cattle used to be part of the mix, but the Nells stopped farming them once they’d done the job of cleaning all the roughage up.

“We had a series of droughts, which cattle are more difficult to get through than a Corriedale. Fencing was more of an issue with the cattle and in the end I decided to get rid of them – on a place like this they are more competitive than complementary to the sheep.”

He is particular about how the sheep are handled and rarely uses dogs in the yards. “I’d rather work the sheep by being in the right place, and gentle encouragement,” says Bruce.

What the judges said…

• Long term strong commitment and support to the long term viability of the local community.
• Ambassadors for the promotion of NZ agriculture through a very successful farm tourism business.
• Strong intergenerational planning and family involvement in the growth of the farm and tourism business.
• Very good farm management practices and high awareness of animal welfare.
  

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© 2009 Environment Canterbury