increase font size
The 2020-21 compliance monitoring report, presented this month to Environment Southland summarised compliance monitoring, enforcement and technical teams’ activities.
Southland farmers are being praised for maintaining high environmental compliance during the 2020-21 monitoring year.
The 2020-21 compliance monitoring report, presented this month to Environment Southland summarised compliance monitoring, enforcement and technical teams’ activities.
Environment Southland general manager integrated catchment management Paul Hulse said that once again Covid restrictions led to significant disruption of the inspection programme, and therefore, inspection numbers.
“It has been another challenging year, however, the compliance team has managed the programme extremely well.”
There were 960 on-site and aerial dairy shed effluent discharge consent inspections completed during the 2020/21 season.
Of these, 747 were fully compliant, 200 were graded low risk or moderate non-compliance, while 13 were graded significant non-compliance – equating to about 1.3% significant non-compliant inspections.
The 2020-21 year saw a slight drop in the number of incidents reported to the compliance division on the previous year.
There were 888 reported incidents in 2020/2021 compared to 964 reported incidents in the 2019/2020 year.
“When a farm is graded as significantly non-compliant there is a range of follow-up actions available. Not all of these actions result in enforcement. Other actions can include re-inspection, diversion, letters of direction and warnings, infringement notices or abatement notices,” Hulse said.
The vast majority of consent holders across dairying, industry, territorial authorities and other organisations performed well in their environmental monitoring and reporting, he said.
Regulatory Committee chairman Neville Cook said it was pleasing to see the dairy industry with low significant non-compliance, but that the compliance monitoring report also reported on compliance relating to commercial enterprises.
OPINION: Recent media commentary from Southland Federated Farmers has raised concerns among our rural communities, particularly around Environment Southland’s approach to winter grazing inspections and nitrogen reporting. But let’s be clear, much of what’s been said simply doesn’t reflect reality.
Claims that some Southland farmers were invoiced up to $4000 for winter grazing compliance checks despite not breaching rules are being rejected by Environment Southland.
Environment Southland's catchment improvement funding is once again available for innovative landowners in need of a boost to get their project going.
Otago Regional Council is set to begin its annual winter farm flyovers in the next three weeks.
Federated Farmers says it welcomes a recent court decision which granted a stay on rules in the Southland Water and Land Plan until legislative changes can be made by government.
According to ASB, Fonterra's plan to sell it's Anchor and Mainlands brands could inject $4.5 billion in additional spending into the economy.
New Zealand’s trade with the European Union has jumped $2 billion since a free trade deal entered into force in May last year.
The climate of uncertainty and market fragmentation that currently characterises the global economy suggests that many of the European agricultural machinery manufacturers will be looking for new markets.
Dignitaries from all walks of life – the governor general, politicians past and present, Maoridom- including the Maori Queen, church leaders, the primary sector and family and friends packed Our Lady of Kapiti’s Catholic church in Paraparaumu on Thursday October 23 to pay tribute to former prime Minister, Jim Bolger who died last week.
Agriculture and Forestry Minister, Todd McClay is encouraging farmers, growers, and foresters not to take unnecessary risks, asking that they heed weather warnings today.
With nearly two million underutilised dairy calves born annually and the beef price outlook strong, New Zealand’s opportunity to build a scalable dairy-beef system is now.
OPINION: The Greens have taken the high moral ground on the Palestine issue and been leading political agitators in related…
One of the most galling aspects of the tariffs whacked on our farm exports to the US is the fact…
