El Niño Warning: NZ Farmers Urged to Plan Fert Early
Plan ahead and be patient. That’s the message to farmers and horticulturalists from the chairman of the NZ Agricultural Aviation Association, Kent Weir.
“We continue to try to find a way to get the industry to put on an SGN rating,” he told Rural News.
Barton believes the lack of such a standard stems from a cost of product focus among pastoral farmers, most of whom use contractors to apply nutrients and are either unaware or undervalue the importance of even spread.
“All they’re concerned about is the cost of product applied.”
If more spreaders charged a premium to apply poor or hard to spread material, it would encourage more attention to be paid to product spreadability, and help persuade the major manufacturers that a standard is needed, he adds.
As for Fertmark, which sets nutrient content standards, 14 companies and 51 products are now certified.
“To farm in an environmentally friendly, sustainable way, farmers have to know exactly what they are putting on their land. With Fertmark products they can do just that.
“There is some angst around the use of fertilisers in general but research has shown that our production will drop by up to two thirds if we don’t use fertiliser. That would be catastrophic for the country.
“The issue is to decide what fertiliser to use and farmers should insist on a product with the Fertmark tick before they put anything on their land.”
