Follow the leaders
OPINION: Farmers are urging Kiwi banks and their overseas parent companies to follow the lead of America's six biggest banks and urgently withdraw from the Net Zero Banking Alliance.
Farmers are urging the Government to simplify freshwater farm plans and make the whole process simpler and more affordable for them.
Federated Farmers wrote to the Government this week, calling for “urgent and significant changes”.
Freshwater farm plans, legislated under the Resource Management Act 1991 (RMA) and the Resource Management (Freshwater Farm Plans) Regulations 2023 regulations farmers to do an on-farm freshwater risk assessment and identify actions to either manage or mitigate those risks.
Freshwater farm plans will need to be certified and audited. The results of certification and auditing will be reported to the respective regional council.
Federated Farmers national vice president Colin Hurst says that with the right settings farm plans present a huge opportunity to improve environmental outcomes, reduce duplication and remove the need for farmers to obtain expensive and time-consuming consents.
Unfortunately, the current framework is ‘a complete dog”, he says.
“It’s put in place an impractical and inefficient system where it’s incredibly expensive to write, certify and audit the plans.
“To make matters worse the rules go too far and capture all properties over 20ha, and existing industry or council farm plans are not recognised.
“There is a frustrating level of duplication with most farmers still required to get a resource consent in addition to their farm plan.”
Federated Farmers wants the Government to put in place a practical, pragmatic and effective system that will improve environmental outcomes while reducing the regulatory burden and unnecessary cost.
Hurst says they don’t want to see another expensive ‘box ticking’ exercise that ties farmers up with endless and arbitrary paperwork for very little environmental gain.
“What we’ve asked for is a tiered system that takes a risk-based approach, where the level of plan you need to put in place is determined by your specific catchment and farming activity.
“These plans should be a replacement for, not in addition to, expensive resource consents for things like winter grazing and stock exclusion.
“They should also replace the need for some of the impractical one-size-fits-all regulations applied nationally and allow farmers and catchments to tailor their environmental improvement actions to match local needs.”
European milk processors are eyeing more cheese and milk powder exports into South America following a landmark trade agreement signed last month.
Two European dairy co-operatives are set to merge and create a €14 billion business.
DairyNZ's Kirsty Verhoek ‘walks the talk’, balancing her interests in animal welfare, agricultural science and innovative dairy farming.
"We at Ministry for Primary Industries (MPI) and you at Dairy News said over six months ago that the dairy industry would bounce back, and it has done so with interest.”
Wairarapa sheep and beef farmer Karen Williams is the new chief executive of Irrigation New Zealand.
Whole milk powder prices on Global Dairy Trade (GDT) remains above long run averages and a $10/kgMS milk price for the season remains on the card, says ASB senior economist Chris Tennent-Brown.
OPINION: The end-of-year booze-up at the posh Northern Club in Auckland must have been a beauty, as the legal 'elite'…
OPINION: It divides opinion, but the House has passed the first reading of the Gene Technology Bill.