The sheep and beef farmers, who run their high country station near Ashburton Lakes, have been named the regional supreme winners of the Canterbury Ballance Farm Environment Awards.
Proof of their commitment to land stewardship and environmental innovation is their planting of more than 3000 native plants.
The shrubs and trees are being established in riparian areas to provide a home for wildlife and create exclusion zones protecting sensitive parts of the land.
So far, they have fenced 17km of waterways to exclude stock and reduce bank erosion and worked with other farmers in the area to get a bearing on the impact of farms on nearby creeks, rivers and lakes.
As well as taking out the big prize, the couple won the livestock farm award, biodiversity award, water quality award and safe water recognition award.
The Harmers have worked hard to reduce the property’s environmental footprint while maintaining a profitable business for future generations.
Their breeding operation runs just over 14,000 merino sheep, nearly 800 Angus cattle and about 230 deer across the 5930-hectare property, with all the young animals off the property by April.
Mrs Harmer said they had their arms twisted initially to enter by people suggesting their work had flown under the radar.
She said the lakes area was a challenging environment at the best of times so that made winning the award special.
"We don’t necessarily think the things we are doing are anything special. We just beaver away and do things right, but a few people said we should enter and were incredibly surprised. We never expected to achieve that sort of result."
She said the judges were likely won over by their water monitoring and the overall balancing act of living in the high country environment and doing right by it.
That extended to their animals with genetic improvements made to reduce footrot and work to improve their welfare such as blade shearing, she said.
"We are only here for a short time and we very much have strong values as being stewards for that time and need to leave it in a better position than when we arrived and then hope the next generation will do the same."
They are among four valley farms in the Ashburton Lakes Catchment Group with much of its science and extension work funded by the Ministry for Primary Industries.
That has allowed them to focus on the wider catchment, as well as work on their own property, including water monitoring initially weekly and now monthly for the past three years.
Projects include investigating catch cropping at a neighbour’s property within winter feed programmes and deep nitrogen testing to work out the nitrogen cycle in the high country.
The catchment group is also carrying out nitrate testing and looking at sediment and nutrient movement where crops are grown and stock drink and cross creeks.
Mr Harmer said they wanted to ensure the water leaving their property was better than when it arrived and have reduced their farming activity as much as they could in sensitive areas.
This was being achieved by planting and fencing riparian areas and managing where stock grazed at different times of the year and different seasons, he said.
"I think we are making progress. We really didn’t know what our impact was and I think we are getting closer to understanding a bit more about what our impact actually is and how we can manage that. The aim is to keep learning and we will change things if we need to, based on what we find out."
He said the farm still had to make a profit as it was difficult to have money available for weed and pest control, planting and fencing without ongoing income.
The more land being fenced off reduced the stocking area so they had to be efficient with their resources to get the right balance, he said.
The Harmers have many water bodies on their property.
Between 15 to 20 points are sampled monthly, with many of them at where water arrives and leaves the property as well as midway locations.
They include sampling points at springs and where water goes into small lakes on Castle Ridge as well as shallow groundwater testing.
Another is on Department of Conservation (Doc) land with a further two points where water comes off Doc land.
Mrs Harmer said they both had the same core values with the water sampling shared between them.
He does the groundwater work and was in charge of a wetland being built.
"Of course he’s the one really good at the big picture thinking about what stock should be where and when and balancing and managing crop placement for wind and soil erosion, as well as water quality, and those sorts of things."
Their son, Ben, is the third generation of Harmers full time on the farm with a total of five generations of the family working in the area.
A field day is expected to be held on May 5, before the national supreme award winner is named at a July function.
