28 July 1992 Lincoln Farmer of Decade Award to Specialist Seed Producers

Mid-Canterbury farming partnership Colin and Jocelyn Lill of Whenuapai Farm, six kilometres east of Methven, have won the Lincoln University Foundation's Farmer of the Decade competition.

The specialist seed producers who grow, process and market a range of crops, received their prize of an $8500 overseas travel grant at Lincoln University today (28 July).

Mr and Mrs Lill were among six finalists from 17 entrants in the 1992 competition. As this was the 10th year of the Lincoln Foundation Farmer of the Year awards, the title "Farmer of the Decade" was conferred along with the first prize.

Runners-up were Peter and Sonia Glaister, dairy farmers of Paretai, Balclutha, South Otago, and third were Tim and Helen Ensor who operate a sheep and beef unit, "Jedburgh", at Cheviot, North Canterbury.

The Glaisters won a $4000 overseas travel award and the Ensors a $2500 award, both presented by the Rural Bank.

In addition the Glaisters won a book prize for the best presentation of the day.

The competition is confined to South Island entrants and in the session at Lincoln University the finalists gave illustrated talks about their farming operations. Among the audience of over 200 were past Dominion presidents of Federated Farmers Sir Peter Elworthy and Sir Allan Wright, who is also Lincoln University's Chancellor.

In announcing the winners, the Chairman of the Lincoln University Foundation, Wellington agricultural consultant John Nimmo, said that there were a number of themes common to the characters and careers of the finalists.

They all possessed vision, set themselves high performance targets and goals, were very aware of the customer and the market place, showed independence of thought, had the ability to identify opportunities and grasp them, gave attention to detail, carried out sound planning and financial management, and above all faced up to hard work.

The Foundation's trustees were thrilled with the standard of this year's finalists, he said.

Prior to the presentation segment of the competition at Lincoln, all the finalists' farms had been visited and inspected by judges and performance details analysed.

The Southern Area Manager for the Rural Bank, Mr Henry Ford, described the six finalists as "real achievers, real winners".

Farmer of the Decade Colin Lill holds a Diploma in Agriculture from Lincoln and has been farming in various capacities in the Methven area for the past 20 years. He and his wife began their business partnership in 1985 and purchased Whenuapai Farm in 1988.

They grow specialist crops, process them and market the resulting products.

Mr Lill says that product marketing is at the centre of the business and the key to its success.

Crops grown last season were wheat, white clover, lentils, forage perennial ryegrass, turf perennial ryegrass, prairie grass, radish, yarrow and linseed. The forage perennial ryegrass is destined for the American market, the turf perennial ryegrass is also produced for an American company, the prairie grass is marketed mainly in Australia and North America, and the linseed goes to the United Kingdom.

In 1980 Mr Lill travelled to North America on a Lincoln Foundation Award to study lentil production and the plant breeding material he brought back to New Zealand formed the base from which his two lentil varieties, Invincible and Olympic, were selected. These varieties make up 90 percent of the yellow lentils grown in New Zealand.

Mr Lill relates his success back to strategy changes made some years ago which resulted in product marketing being positioned at the centre of business activities.

He says, however, that product marketing does not detract from on-farm performance. He considers attention to detail and the timing of operations in the field as vital to successful seed growing.

"The strategy changes created opportunities for vertical integration of growing, processing and marketing, which has made our type of farming both challenging and stimulating," he says.

Ian Collins, Journalist, Lincoln University, Canterbury, New Zealand