THE NEW dairy industry accord designed to clean up waterways has been hailed by industry, councils and farmers, but it has drawn only lukewarm support from environmental groups.
The accord sets national environmental benchmarks for dairy farming, covering stock exclusion from waterways and riparian, effluent, nutrient and water use management. It also sets out new industry standards for conversions of land to dairying.
Most of the nation’s 13,000 dairy farmers are covered by the accord, which has the support of Fonterra, Open Country, Tatua, Synlait and Miraka and industry body DairyNZ, while Federated Farmers and 15 regional councils have signed on as ‘friends’.
Many from the local government and the regulatory sector describe it as an excellent mechanism for environmental improvements, unlikely to make farmers’ lives difficult farmers or to bankrupt them. It draws on the consensus approach to water management implemented by the Land and Water Forum.
The accord is not perfect and the last-minute decision by Westland Milk Products not to be a partner is a blow. Hopefully, Westland’s issues can be sorted quickly as an ‘all-in’ method by the dairy industry to water quality management is far better than a piecemeal, company-by-company approach.
Despite this hiccup, the accord is another positive step forward for the dairy sector and water quality in New Zealand and a long way ahead of where it was 10, 15 or even 20 years ago.
But you wouldn’t know this listening to the typically negative response from Fish & Game NZ. It described the new accord as a “mixed blessing” that did not contain enough positives for the lobby group to sign up to. It says while it is heading in the right direction, progress was far too slow and the public expected more.
Fish & Game has an important role as an environmental watchdog. However, it’s incessant and negative carping about the dairy sector makes it sound like a dog that barks and chases car tyres, but not much else. These animals usually don’t stay around long and unless Fish & Game changes its obvious anti-farming modus operandi, it too will come across as all yap and no substance.
Federated Farmers Nelson spokesman Martin O’Connor summed up its response well when he said the lobby “was never happy and ignored the fact farmers had spent huge amounts on environmental compliance in recent years.” As O’Connor adroitly added: “… It’s hard to farm green, when you are in the red.”
That’s something Fish & Game would do well to recognise.