Enviro award for fifth-generation Bay View farmer

WINNING WORK: Napier farmer Philip Holt wins East Coast Balance Farm Environment Awards.

Fifth-generation Bay View farmer Philip Holt and wife Robyn have won the East Coast Ballance Farm Environment Award, presented in Gisborne last night.

It was the latest triumph in the 35 years the couple have been farming Maraetara, taking over the original family farm of 290ha in 1982, and with a variety of purchases have seen the Maraetara Farming Co-operation grow to incorporate 1484ha, mostly medium to steep hill country with 100ha of flat country.

Trees have been grown on Maraetara by five generations of the Holt family, now including 88ha of pines, 14ha of alternative species, 21ha of planted natives, an 18ha QE II National Trust covenant and a 184ha open-space covenant.

Maraetara now includes 18 titles ranging in size from 150ha to 1.5ha. Mr Holt leases another 145ha locally and 200ha at Rangiwahia.

"This has helped us to build scale and options for succession," said Mr Holt, referring to daughter Catherine and sons Philip and Alexander. "But it also means we have about 70 neighbours... only three of them farmers."

Maraetara has an open-gate philosophy when it comes to schools and conferences, walking groups, garden rambles, horse treks, motorbike fundraisers and volunteer planting groups.

Mr Holt, winner of the Hawke's Bay Farm Forester of the Year title in 2002, said: "In some ways I feel the social responsibility of the connection between rural and urban getting wider. I think it's so important the urban people get an opportunity to visit and farm and see what goes on."

Judges said Maraetara is in a tough farming environment with one of the lowest rainfalls in the region.

"This property experiences drought, floods, weeds and the challenge of lifestyle neighbours... and is harder to farm than it looks," they said.

They said the proximity to town has its challenges, but "the positives" have been embraced and the farm has regular visitors as Mr Holt proactively tries to break down the urban/rural divide.

Mr Holt provides "quality livestock in a challenging climatic and physical environment", they said.

Maraetara carries 3639 mixed-age Coopworth ewes, 1161 two-tooth ewes and 1385 ewe hoggets. The farm produces 35,000kg of wool. On the beef side, it has 310 Angus breeding cows plus 167 R2 heifers, 108 R1 steers and 115 R2 steers.

The farm also has 273 mixed age Boer-cross does in the goat operation with 152 goats sold last year.

The Holts take every opportunity to collect and store water, including a 9-million-litre stock water dam, with 150 gravity-fed troughs and more than 70 ponds/dams - all of which are cleaned out regularly.

The farm bounds the Ahuriri Estuary and with half its flats having emerged from the sea in the 1931 earthquake they can flood at any time of the year.

Mr Holt also won the WaterForce Integrated Management Award and shared the Farm Stewardship Award, which is supported in partnership with the QEII National Trust and the New Zealand Farm Environment Trust.

Newstead Farm, owned by Robert and Helen Pattullo, at Puketapu near Napier, won the Ballance Agri-Nutrients Soil Management Award, and McNeill Farms, a sheep, beef and forestry partnership between John and Sue Upton and Ben and Katie Absolom at Rissington, also near Napier, won the Massey University Innovation Award and shared the Farm Stewardship Award with Philip Holt.