Capturing the premiums

Three generations on from Georgie (Gee) Harper’s grandfather purchasing an undeveloped hill country property in the Canterbury foothills, the agricultural enterprise she is running, with husband Dan, has grown in scale with a specialist mindset.

The couple who took over the property in 2012 from Georgie’s parents Colin and Hilary Guild have worked closely with their onfarm team, board, advisors and supply partners to build a vision for farming for the next generation of their four children.

Spanning across three different properties – Quartz Hill Station, Valehead and dairy farm, Dilloway, their focus is on creating products that meet the demanding specifications of their customers, to work on capturing premiums from lamb, beef, wool, bird seed, velvet, venison dairy and agritourism. They have tried other things such as hemp and Wagyu in the past and have learnt alot about a strict profit margin policy; each land class balancing ecological benefits and having clearly defined market strategies.

“Gee and I want to focus our business in the value-add, premium space,” says Dan. “Because when you are in the commodity game there’s no incentive when you just send the lambs away on the truck, that’s the end of it.”

Quartz Hill Station was one of the first farms in New Zealand to be Farm Assurance Plus Accredited (NZFAP Plus), achieving a gold accreditation as well as being one of the farmer shareholders in establishment of Headwaters.

Headwaters is a supplier programme established in 2017 to where like-minded farmers commit to breeding and finishing lambs of the Headwaters breed. The lamb supplies the Lumina brand which  targets international chefs through a high quality taste and health properties. Lumina is a joint venture between Alliance and Headwaters and last season supplied 127,000 lambs through the programme and scaling up in the 2024/2025 season to 185,000.

“Every farmer wants to see where their product goes; what it tastes like; meet the chefs using it. That’s what you get to do with Lumina. Bringing the chefs to the farm and doing that with the staff is so great,” says Georgie.

Georgie and Dan’s progressive business model, focused on diversifying their land-use, employs 12 staff members across three properties and the couple say their employees are intricate members of the success of the business.

At Valehead near Windwhistle they produce an array of arable crops including Wheat, Barley, Peas, Maize, Canary and Red Clover seed for Topflight bird seed. Irrigation has been a game-changer for the Harpers, with 200ha at Valehead under pivot irrigators; but they had to find ways to set up centre pivot irrigation whilst retaining the important established shelterbelts in a high wind zone. “We use variable rate irrigation technology to ensure we only use what we need. It’s giving us the controlled rainfall to farm effectively,” says Dan.

The diversity of their product range has had management challenges, such as low-to-no chemical use on the chicory they finish the Headwater lambs on, that were bred at the station. As a breeder-finisher, their lambs are finished for 35 days  and weighing and drafting technology plays a huge role in the team’s ability to finish lambs to spec consistently.

Dan is currently an associate director on the Headwater’s board and is assisting their strategy is to support farmers to get better outcomes by lining up the value-chain and sharing the premiums. They are introducing new technology called ‘Heads Up’ that is going to allow farmers to have real-time forecasting and kill data to assist the high-accuracy Alliance’s processing plants need for booking space for their programme’s lambs.

“When I came into this role a few years back I was told by farmers that I’d rather change my wife than my sheep breed. We were asking them to do that and often change meat companies. The next generation of farmers are not hung up on the same issues and are looking at the whole programme, being connected to markets, getting their staff involved in something,” says Tim Saunders, Headwaters General Manager.

Dan says the premium is a fair reward for the effort put in. Regardless of Alliance’s current financial predicament, he says he’s still proud to be an Alliance shareholder as there has been a lot of investment from both parties over a number of years to get it to the scale it is now.

Five years ago Quartz Hill partnered with Stoney Creek, one of New Zealand’s premier outdoor clothing brands, to launch to the market in 2024 a comprehensive new 100% NZ Wool Range with Brent and Juanita McConnell. Georgie and Dan Harper said it was an emotional experience being on the Stoney Creek site and seeing people wearing their wool at Mystery Creek Fieldays. “There are some farmers out there that will remember making money from wool. We haven’t had that experience until now. Seeing it connected to our farm is pretty cool,” says Dan.

The Stoney Creek 100% NZ Wool range is crafted with a commitment to fine tuning their manufacturing and supply chain to offer more value to the farmer with a quality product to the consumer at a good price. “We used to just shear it and get it gone because it’s not worth anything. We can actually put effort into the shed as there is value in the product now,” says Georgie.

Georgie now has a close eye on wool quality and shed standards to meet specifications and says strong wool farmers have to lift their game at shearing if they want to capture premiums.

The profits from the business continues to fund their environmental goals such as the 3km of native riparian planting at the head of the Selwyn River and the 300ha of regenerating bush on the hilltops of High Peak. The Quartz Hill Guild’s won the 2009 Canterbury Ballance Farm Environment Award winner, before the High Peak Guild’s took home the national title in 2024. They see themselves as one of the many custodians of the high country in Canterbury’s Rakaia Gorge and the family enjoy sharing their love of hunting in the properties reserve with its backcountry accommodation and corporate hosting.

From a farming family of four children in Pōrangahau in Central Hawkes Bay, Dan says with their aspirations of equal opportunities for their young family of four, alongside Georgie’s parents, Colin and Hilary, they have established a governance structure.

“We appointed Richard Green as the chair of the board and it’s been a game-changer for us all to have someone so competent to bounce off. It’s provided us with the management structure to meet the wants and needs of inter-generational farming,’ explains Georgie.  

Listen to Sarah Perriam-Lampp’s interview with Dan & Gee Harper from Mystery Creek Fieldays HERE