increase font size
Canterbury and Otago catchment groups will receive $6 million in government funding.
The Government is giving $6 million to farmer-led catchment groups in Canterbury and Otago to improve water health.
Agriculture Minister Damien O’Connor says the grants will help farmers improve the health of rivers, wetlands, and habitat biodiversity as well as improving long-term land management practices.
Four farmer-led catchment group Jobs for Nature projects have between allocated between $176,000 and $2.3 million over the next three years to fund environmental improvement work across dozens of sites in their regions. These projects will also employ between 15 and 20 people as well as specialist contractors over that period.
O’Connor says most of the initiatives are being led by established catchment groups with hundreds of farmer members. The work will involve fencing and planting around water bodies, clearing of unsuitable trees and pest control. Projects also include building a wetland board walk, and structures to protect endangered fish from predator species.
“These projects, like the WAI Wānaka project I recently announced, will build on the work farmers are already doing to nurture their environment, as well as providing crucial jobs in areas affected by COVID-19,” O’Connor said.
A further $2.9 million investment will help around 300 Hurunui farmers work towards improving the health of their land and water through applying farm environment planning and sustainable land management practices.
The Future Hurunui project will provide catchment support to the Hurunui District Landcare Group for its members to use towards developing their farm environment plans.
The funding will enable the group to partner with trusted rural professionals to provide advice and support to their catchment members. The group will employ three people to do this work.
“Hurunui farmers have had a particularly tough few years, with the 2016 Kaikoura earthquake causing thousands of landslides and significant damage to large areas of land,” O’Connor said.
OPINION: The case of four Canterbury high country stations facing costly and complex consent hearing processes highlights the dilemma facing the farming sector as the country transitions into a replacement for the Resource Management Act (RMA).
Otago Regional Council is set to begin its annual winter farm flyovers in the next three weeks.
With a focus on producing their own on-farm dairy feed requirements, it would be safe to say that the Fleming family are no strangers to a fertiliser spreader on their North Canterbury farm, near Culverden.
As the New Zealand Government launches negotiations on a Free Trade Agreement with India, one Canterbury-based vegetable seed breeder is already benefiting from exporting to the world's fifth-largest economy.
Two high producing Canterbury dairy farmers are moving to blended stockfeed supplements fed in-shed for a number of reasons, not the least of which is to boost protein levels, which they can’t achieve through pasture under the region’s nitrogen limit of 190kg/ha.
Foot and Mouth Disease outbreaks could have a detrimental impact on any country's rural sector, as seen in the United Kingdom's 2000 outbreak that saw the compulsory slaughter of over six million animals.
The Ministry for the Environment is joining as a national award sponsor in the Ballance Farm Environment Awards (BFEA from next year).
Kiwis are wasting less of their food than they were two years ago, and this has been enough to push New Zealand’s total household food waste bill lower, the 2025 Rabobank KiwiHarvest Food Waste survey has found.
OPINION: Sir Lockwood Smith has clearly and succinctly defined what academic freedom is all about, the boundaries around it and the responsibility that goes with this privilege.
DairyNZ says its plantain programme continues to deliver promising results, with new data confirming that modest levels of plantain in pastures reduce nitrogen leaching, offering farmers a practical, science-backed tool to meet environmental goals.
According to the most recent Rabobank Rural Confidence Survey, farmer confidence has inched higher, reaching its second highest reading in the last decade.
OPINION: For years, the ironically named Dr Mike Joy has used his position at Victoria University to wage an activist-style…
OPINION: A mate of yours truly has had an absolute gutsful of the activist group SAFE.
