Tuesday, 23 May 2017 14:55

Water Accord - ‘business as usual’

Written by  Peter Burke
DairyNZ director Alister Body. DairyNZ director Alister Body.

The targets in the Sustainable Dairying Water Accord are effectively becoming normal business practice for dairy farmers, says a DairyNZ director, Alister Body.

He made his comments at the release of a three year review of the accord, which covers a range of environmental targets dairy farmers are encouraged to achieve voluntarily. All dairy companies – except Westland which runs its own scheme -- support the targets, as do the regional councils, Federated Farmers and some other agri-related organisations.

Body says the accord was agreed to and signed without a specific end date, but the signatories agreed to the three-year report on what has and has not been achieved.

On the plus side, the report states that 97% of dairy farms have fenced waterways and nearly 100% of farms have bridges or culverts over streams where cows cross. It says dairy companies have assessed all dairy farms for effluent systems and a dairy effluent warrant of fitness scheme is available to farmers. The target of having new dairy farm conversions comply with environmental standards has been achieved on time.

However, a plan to exclude stock from wetlands has not been achieved and the target to have about half of dairy farms put in place a riparian management plan is only half achieved. Also not completed on time is a plan to have nutrient management data collected from all farms.

Overall the report is a mixed bag, but there is commitment from DairyNZ and the other parties to achieve the targets set out in the accord. It is uncertain how this will be achieved.

Body says in the early days some of the targets were seen as a stretch for farmers, but he reckons this has now changed.

“Dairy farmers are expected to do these things on a day to day basis,” he told Rural News. “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 and nutrient management; so really we think the future for this accord is going to be quite different.”

Body would prefer to see something more high level and strategic, and not applying only to dairy farmers, but to all farmers. One of the concerns he and others have raised is the need for accurate national data on significant non-compliance by dairy farms. The problem is that regional councils have different systems that make it hard to get fair comparisons.

The report shows that of the major dairy regions, Taranaki has by far the lowest incidence of significant non-compliance – a mere 0.8%. Conversely, Waikato is 10% and Northland 14%. Others such as Bay of Plenty and Canterbury are about 5% and the West Coast just 2.5%.

While these results are likely to draw protest from some quarters, Body says it’s important to get accurate data so the industry knows where it stands. He says the good news is that, in general, farmers are moving towards good management practice and farm environmental plans and farmers will be audited on these.

On the issue of not all waterways being fenced, Body believes this is due to the terrain of some parts of farms and regular flooding.

“In difficult country where streams flood regularly you can’t simply put up a permanent or semi-permanent fence,” he explains. “There are places where Waratahs will get washed away in floods.”

More like this

Strong uptake of good wintering practices

DairyNZ has seen a significant increase in the number of farmers improving their wintering practices, which results in a higher standard of animal care and environmental protection.

Better animal genetic gain system

A governance group has been formed, following extensive sector consultation, to implement the recommendations from the Industry Working Group's (IWG) final report and is said to be forming a 'road map' for improving New Zealand's animal genetic gain system.

OSPRI's costly software upgrade

Animal disease management agency OSPRI has announced sweeping governance changes as it seeks to recover from the expensive failure of a major software project.

Musical chairs

OPINION: DairyNZ's director elections has seen scientist Jacqueline Rowarth re-elected for another three-year term.

Featured

Massey Research Field Day attracts huge interest

More than 200 people turned out on Thursday, November 21 to see what progress has been made on one of NZ's biggest and most comprehensive agriculture research programmes on regenerative agriculture.

Expo set to wow again

Stellar speakers, top-notch trade sites, innovation, technology and connections are all on offer at the 2025 East Coast Farming Expo being once again hosted in Wairoa in February.

A year of global challenges

As a guest of the Italian Trade Association, Rural News Group Machinery Editor Mark Daniel took the opportunity to make an early November dash to Bologna to the 46th EIMA exhibition.

National

Winter grazing warning

Every time people from overseas see photographs of cows up to their hocks in mud it's bad for New Zealand.

ANZ defends farm lending rates

The country's largest lender to the agriculture sector says it's not favouring home loans over farm and business lending.

Machinery & Products

Expo set to wow again

Stellar speakers, top-notch trade sites, innovation, technology and connections are all on offer at the 2025 East Coast Farming Expo…

A year of global challenges

As a guest of the Italian Trade Association, Rural News Group Machinery Editor Mark Daniel took the opportunity to make…

» Latest Print Issues Online

The Hound

Review SOEs!

OPINION: NIWA has long weathered complaints about alleged stifling of competition in forecasting, and more recently, claims of lack of…

Bank reset

OPINION: Adding to calls to get banks to 'back off', NZ Agri Brokers director Andrew Laming has revealed that the…

» Connect with Rural News

» eNewsletter

Subscribe to our weekly newsletter