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A family that has been farming in the Kaipara Hills for five generations and nearly 130 years has won the 2018 Supreme Auckland Ballance Farm Environment Award for sustainable land management and good farming practice.
Father and son team Bruce and Steve Dill, together with their wives, Felicity and Clare, farm the 488-ha sheep and beef property Atuanui that was founded by Marcus Gordon Dill in 1889.
The award was announced at a special dinner in Auckland on April 4, where the Dills were also presented with three more prizes – the Ballance Agri-Nutrients Soil Management Award, the Beef + Lamb NZ Livestock Award and the CB Norwood Distributors Ltd Agri-Business Management Award.
Steve Dill said afterwards that winning the awards had been a complete and utter surprise, not least since it was the first time they had entered and had no way of knowing how their business stacked up against the other three finalists. He’s now busy planning a special open field day at their Dill Road property, in the hills between Kaipara Flats and the Kaipara Coast Highway, for Tuesday, May 8 at 10.30am.
Judges said it was a combination of family teamwork and a multi-generational attachment to, and knowledge of, the land that had created “a successful and sustainable farming business with many environmental highlights”.
Three quarters of Atuanui is steep hill country, which was both an asset and a liability, they said. While the westerly outlook to Kaipara Harbour provides a spectacular setting for the Dills’ eco-tourism accommodation and walking venture, it is also prone to winter flooding, erosion and sediment loss into the Hoteo River.
The Dills have managed these issues by developing and implementing a formal Land and Environment Plan, which has included planting more than 10,000 trees and plants, installing effective stock fencing, managing stock water reticulation and keeping stock levels low in sensitive areas. They have also started their own tree nursery to build up manuka and poplar numbers around the farm.
Two other local agricultural ventures also received environment awards at the presentation dinner. David, Geraldine, Don and Margaret Bayly, who run the Kaipara Coast Plant Centre, Sculpture Gardens and beef cattle farm near Kaukapakapa, picked up three prizes – the Auckland BFEA People in Agriculture Award, the Massey University Innovation Award and the Predator Free Farm Award. And Ray and Pam Hollis’s Gracefarm, a rural residential farm park and dairy support venture at Te Hana, won the Auckland Council Water Quality Enhancement Award.
For more details about attending the Dills’ farm open day, email auckland@bfea.org.nz.
