36 | Top award caps off big night for family High Peak Station is a diverse and multi-generational farming business. Richard Loader The Guild family’s fiftieth anniversary on North Canterbury’s High Peak Station was the primary catalyst for entering the 2024 Canterbury Ballance Farm Environment Awards, with Regional Supreme winner its timely reward. A diverse and multi-generational farming business, High Peak Station’s bounty of awards also included Beef + Lamb New Zealand Livestock Farm Award, Rabobank Agri-Business Management Award, NZFET Biodiversity Award, NZFET Climate Recognition Award and Environment Canterbury Water Quality Award. “We’ve had a bit of pressure over a number of years from different people to enter the awards and put ourselves forward,” says Hamish who is in a four-way partnership on High Peak Station’s farming enterprise, alongside his siblings Simon and Amelia, his wife Gemma, and parents James and Anna. “Dad came here with his family in 1973, and by entering the awards we wanted to say that we have been here for fifty years now. It was a way of acknowledging the amount of work mum and dad have put in to get us to this point.” Located just over the Rakaia River, the farming operation on the 3760-hectare property is a split between sheep (lamb and wool), beef and deer (venison, velvet and trophy stags), with Hamish following his passion for livestock farming. Simon looks after the agri-tourism part of the business, which primarily includes trophy hunting, complemented with a number of events on farm and product launches, with corporate retreats in the pipeline. Amelia’s husband Tom looks after the bee- keeping and produces three key honey types; clover, black beech honey dew and manuka, and is now looking at further developing export markets that may also include some of the farm’s other products one day. Having been through some challenging years including Covid and the 2021 floods, the family felt that presenting the farming business to the award judges while it was still in a recovery phase to be perfect timing. “In the early stage of the awards process, you really try to look at what other people might want to see in the business. As farmers, we’re often too busy doing the day-to-day-operations to get a decent overview, so it was quite nice stepping back from the business and looking at it from different angles. Within that time frame we found a few things that we could improve on.” Hamish adds that one of the things he enjoyed about the Canterbury Awards was the diverse field of entrants. “I found it very interesting to look at quite different businesses. Ballance Farm Environment Awards » High Peak Station While we were very successful on the night, it was humbling to see the quality of businesses, and that there was a very high standard. We had a full muster of the family attending the awards evening, and we took turns to go up and collect the awards. “Even mum accepted one at the end with Amelia and Gemma. When we were announced as the Supreme Winner, there was a lot of gratitude from the family; very proud but humbled to be chosen. Canterbury is a very strong farming region, so get the top award was pretty special.” Reflecting on the family’s success on the night, Hamish says this comes down to the property’s diversification and being multi-generational, coupled with looking after the environment in the sense of the catchment, being the headwaters of the Selwyn River. “There was also the strategic planning that goes with all of that – how do we navigate the next few years and what direction will the business head in? “The intention of the farming diversity is that we become multi-generational off one piece of land asset. It changes from being seen just as a farm, and becomes the commercial asset from which we draw an income and make a living.”
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