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Beef + Lamb New Zealand’s chief executive Sam McIvor.
Beef + Lamb New Zealand’s chief executive Sam McIvor says the environment is at the heart of everything sheep and beef farmers do.
Speaking at the B+LNZ annual meeting in Timaru yesterday, he noted that last year it launched an environment strategy with the goals of becoming carbon neutral by 2050, having clean freshwater surrounding sheep and beef farms, having thriving biodiversity on farm, and healthy and productive soils.
“Throughout 2018 we’ve been focused on delivering more resources and tools to farmers to help them proactively manage environmental impacts but also capturing the good work that they are doing,” says McIvor.
“For example, we’ve identified that our farmers have conserved 1.4 million ha of native bush, 24% of NZ’s native bush is on our sheep and beef farms – an outstanding achievement that enhances New Zealand’s biodiversity.”
Farmers who attended the annual meeting were also updated about the challenges facing the sector in 2019 with insights from the Ministry for Primary Industries, National Party climate change spokesperson Todd Muller, and B+LNZ’s environmental reference group chair Mark Adams, on issues such as climate change, water quality, and biodiversity all set for regulatory change in the months ahead.
Beef + Lamb New Zealand says it has been engaging proactively with government and our partner organisations across the rural sector to advocate and develop policy responses to the challenges facing the sector that address the issues but also work for farmers.
“And, we’ll continue to do that throughout 2019,” says McIvor.
Attendees had the chance to see both of these themes in action too when they visited Geoff and Joy Hayward’s Mt Horrible farm, a highly productive and profitable mixed cropping and sheep and beef farm outside of Timaru that is part of the New Zealand Farm Assurance Programme and supplies premium product to the United Kingdom through ANZCO.
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