Mr Humm was a speaker at a workshop on land-use diversification opportunities for pastoral farmers in Ranfurly earlier this month.
His family had owned a 150ha dryland farm in Mt Somers since 1963.
Some of the farm was leased to cover his parents’ retirement and he leased some to pursue his passion of farming deer.
The family were investigating succession options including ways to continue farming the land and paying out his siblings — three sisters and a twin brother.
Diversification options explored included entering an irrigation scheme but it was expensive and some farmers in the district who taken this option had then sold for dairy conversions.
Milking cows did not appeal and their farm had 10km of established shelterbelts, which the family did not want to chop down to make room for pivot irrigators.
About 18 months ago, he saw a social media post seeking land to establish a solar farm.
"I was straight on the phone to these guys."
The companies developing the solar assets were HES Aotearoa and United Kingdom-based Solar South West.
A deal was struck to lease land to build a 35ha solar farm.
The family did not need to provide any capital — "one of the great benefits is we don’t have to take that risk".
A resource consent be granted to build the solar farm.
The size of the solar farm was dictated by the available capacity at a nearby substation, he said.
They were still waiting for Transpower to approve a request to put power back in the grid.
"I’m pretty optimistic and we are going for it from our end."
Crops could be grown and stock grazed under the solar panels, allowing for the land to produce different income streams at the same time.
