Friday, March 29, 2024

Farmers say river plan will kill businesses

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Many of the more than 150 farmers who gathered in Pukekohe last Monday believe the Waikato Regional Council’s Healthy Rivers Wai Ora plan will drive them out of business or severely limit what they can do on their properties.
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And Waikato University Professor of Agribusiness Jacqueline Rowarth told them if the plan came into force there would be a dearth of young people returning to the land.

New Zealand enjoyed some of the best quality wild water in the world, backed up by a huge amount of environmental protection.

She questioned comparisons made and said a lot of the research work used by the Healthy Rivers Wai Ora collaborative stakeholder group (CSG) was based on modelling without giving enough attention to the constraints and uncertainties involved, especially went it came to Overseer programme predictions.

Actual data showed generally that levels of contaminants in the Waikato River were moving in the right way and while nitrogen leaching might increase after droughts it soon returned to more normal patterns.

“That’s good because it shows that farmers are doing a lot,” she said.

The Waikato had lower levels of nitrogen per litre than the Manawatu River and much lower levels than some overseas examples such as the Thames, Seine and Mississippi.

Phosphorus levels were also good.

“N and P won’t kill you,” she said, referring to two of the four elements the CSG recommendations focused on reducing.

“But E. coli will and sediment will if you can’t see through it.”

While Ministry for the Environment guidelines were that from 260-540 coliform units per millilitre meant water was swimmable and from 540-1000 wadeable, a European Union directive from 2006-07 stated water at the 500 level was of excellent quality and at 1000 good.

“They have a different pass mark.”

Research done at Lincoln University showed the CSG process was not a way to achieve anything other than emotive outcomes.

“This will have a huge economic impact,” she said.

“Farmers I’m talking to are saying, ‘I’m out of business’.”

But she said if farmers came out fighting that would force the council into a corner.

“We are trying to achieve a win-win to allow the WRC to say its rivers are pretty healthy.

“Sustainability is about protecting natural resources but businesses should be economically viable.”

On the dairy farm in which she’s a shareholder she said large reductions in leaching levels had been made through building an animal shelter and feeding maize grown on another block of land, which had also increased milk production.

“I wish the council would say they would allow farmers to bring in new technology and do things even better.

“What you need to do is create vibrant businesses which will bring young people home so they’re not in Paris or New York except on holiday.”

Federated Farmers’ Franklin chairman Bruce Cameron said the first effect would be a drop of rural values as buyers discounted prices by the amount of work they had to do to reach plan standards.

“The moratorium is a cop-out because the council doesn’t have the data and wants 10 years to collect it at our expense.”

Vegetable grower Brendan Balle said as the plan stood, commercial growing in the Waipa catchment would be constrained to its maximum land use from 2006-16 and growers would lose a substantial amount of productive land through the requirement to fence waterways.

“We’re big on crop rotation and using cattle but our whole programme’s in real jeopardy with this.”

Peter Reynolds

Vegetable grower

Another vegetable grower, Peter Reynolds, said he took the whole plan as a slap in the face.

“We are cropping the same fields our family broke in 148 years ago,” he said.

“We’re big on crop rotation and using cattle but our whole programme’s in real jeopardy with this.”

Primary Land Users Group (PLUG) chairman Peter Buckley, a former WRC chairman said the proposed plan devalued every farmer’s land and forestry more than any other type.

“We all agree that water quality needs to improve,” he said.

“But it’s going to have the biggest effect of any plan change and I believe we can do better.”

On his own 65ha effective dairy farm for every crossing on races he would have to show how he was diverting run-off water out of waterways which could come at a considerable cost.

“We need to get this out to the broader community,” he said.

“It’s important that we stick together and get a good outcome.”

PLUG was urging farmers to make submissions on the proposed plan, had already set up an email address for financial contributions and would soon have a website running.

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