New Zealand Century Farm and Station Awards Celebrate 20 Years Honouring Farming Families

Now in its 20th year, the organisation runs an annual event to formally honour New Zealand families which have farmed their land for 100 years or more.

With 36 Century Farms to be featured this year, some 300 people are expected at the event, to be held in Lawrence, Otago, on the weekend of May 15.

Another 12 farms will be honoured as SesquiCentennial farms, having clocked up 150 years.

The event includes a welcome on the Friday night then a farm and town tour on the Saturday before the awards dinner that evening. It is not a competition, but all honourees are presented with a certificate and a bronze plaque suitable for mounting on their property.

"We need to celebrate farming. Farming's been a really big part, and still is a big part, of what makes New Zealand, and makes our income as a country," said Barnett.

She said the history of farming families, the things they have been through and the things they've done, might otherwise be forgotten.

"Most farmers aren't just stuck on a farm working their farm, a lot of them are a major part of their local communities.

"So often farming is seen in a negative light and I think it's good to reward those that have done great things and are still doing great things."

Barnett said she and her husband spent 28 years on a 10-acre block, which was "nothing" compared with the Century farmers, but it gave an appreciation of the highs and the lows that farmers have been through.

NZCFSA chair Edward Fitzgerald said the NZCFSA team and Lawrence locals were looking forward to hosting the event.

"It is a real honour to acknowledge the families' hard work and perserverance."

To qualify, a farm has to have been held and farmed by the same family for over 100 years.

Barnett said it doesn't matter whether the farm is owned or leased, with many farms in the earlier days starting out as Crown or Māori lease, many of which had since converted to freehold.

She said many farms were balloted to returned servicemen after the first world war, in a process that continued into the 1920s.

"So that's bringing out quite a few of our Century Farmers these days."

Barnett said the movement was long established in the United States and Canada and was launched in New Zealand after "a key couple of people" heard about it,

The New Zealand movement is based in Lawrence partly because there is a good number of Century Farms in the area. Barnett said it was the site of New Zealand's first major gold rush in 1861, and many miners who made their fortune from the Gabriel's Gully gold used their earnings to buy land in the district.

"Our first awards in 2005 were a very quiet affair and it's got bigger ever since."

She said the 12 SesquiCentennial Farms was the highest number yet.

"Some of them are returns that have celebrated the farm as a Centennial farm and have since kicked over the 150 years."

 Farmlands has been the major sponsor throughout.

Meanwhile, NZCFSA is inviting applications for the next event, from families that have worked their land since 1926 or earlier. The deadline is November 30.