Pledge to make rural waterways swimmable

So said DairyNZ’s chief executive, Dr Tim Mackle, speaking at the release of the three year review of the accord recently.

Mackle says many waterways running through dairy farms are already swimmable but no one is in any doubt that more has to be done.

“We are up for that, and this is dairy’s promise to New Zealand,” he says.

The Accord is a range of environmental targets which dairy farmers are encouraged to achieve voluntarily.

It has the direct backing of all dairy companies -- except Westland Milk Products which runs its own scheme -- plus regional councils, Federated Farmers and some other agri related organisations.

The three year review shows that 97% of dairy farms have fenced waterways and that nearly 100% of farms have bridges or culverts over streams where cows cross. It also states that dairy companies have assessed all dairy farms for effluent systems and that a dairy effluent warrant of fitness scheme is available as a tool for farmers.

In respect of new dairy conversions, the target of having new dairy farm conversions complying with environmental standards has been achieved on time.

But a plan to exclude stock from wetlands has not been achieved and a target of having about 50% of dairy farms have in place a riparian management plan is only half completed. Also not completed on time is a plan to collect nutrient management data from all farms.

Mackle says the accord is voluntary, which in itself is a huge challenge. He says on average farmers have spent about $90,000 to protect waterways on their farms.

“I am most proud of that; it has been done without pressure from the regulators. Interestingly the government has just announced regulations on swimmable rivers. We have been working at that for a long time and have achieved a lot already. Farmers have this done voluntarily by themselves.”

Referring to the unmet targets, Mackle comments that there are always people in society who won’t support a given agenda and others who for personal reasons will struggle to do what’s required of them.

“What you’re seeing now is an increasing appetite for farmers to actually use peer pressure to move people into the right space. That is very positive, but even that won’t get everybody and that’s where the regulators have to come in,” he says.

Mackle says he’s in no doubt that long standing opponents of the dairy industry will pick holes in the three year report and use this to support their own political agendas. But he says whatever shape a future accord may take there is a commitment by DairyNZ to see that the targets in the report are met.

Meanwhile DairyNZ director Alister Body says the targets in the accord are now business-as-usual for dairy farmers. When these target were originally set they were seen as a stretch, but not now.

“Dairy farmers are expected to do these things on a day-to-day basis. If you look at the way regional councils and planning procedures are going, the movement is for each farm to have an environmental management plan. Those plans are all the things we are talking about such as fencing, bridges, nutrient management -- all those sorts of things. So we think the future [thanks to] this accord is going to be quite different.”

Body says he would like to see more high level, strategic thinking applying not just to dairy farmers but to all farmers.