Saturday, March 30, 2024

Conversion days over

Neal Wallace
The era of large tracts of land being converted to dairying is history, Waikato farmer Ian Elliott says.
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He recalled his father in 1951 turning bush at Lichfield into pasture and, more recently, Elliott bought forestry land off Carter Holt Harvey that he converted to dairying, ensuring water quality and the environment were protected.

But the Waikato Regional Council’s Healthy Rivers programme put a cap on the nitrogen loading in the soil, making any land use intensification difficult, especially from forestry to dairying, he said.

It was a similar story in Southland, which had been transformed in the last 25 years from a predominantly sheep and beef farming region to dairy, a shift Federated Farmers Southland dairy section chairman Graeme McKenzie said would be impossible under new environmental rules.

Environment Southland’s new water and land plan meant converting to dairying or adding an existing runoff block or leased area to a milking platform required resource consent.

The province has been split into nine physiographic zones and McKenzie said each had specific rules such as the area an individual farm may sow in winter crops.

“Basically, what it is saying is physiographic zones are not based on water quality data but based on how water behaves through the system in that zone.

“They have placed restrictions based on what might happen.”

The zones did tell farmers how their land would behave, which was useful, but the policy overall locked in land use.

Farmers were looking for definitions from the council, such as what constituted dairying to provide them with clarity.

McKenzie did not think the tougher rules signalled an end to improved farm productivity.

“There will still be growth in all industries but the big swings in land use change probably won’t be seen on the scale seen in the past.”

Elliott, the managing director of Trinity Farms, was optimistic about the future of dairying saying technology and innovation would provide answers.

“Something will get legs in the next five to 10 years which we will be able to use to improve agricultural production and will have a positive effect on the environment.”

There would be rules and regulations included in council plans that were illogical but it was important farmers were part of the hearing process and that they focused on the bigger game.

“I want clean rivers, it’s a great goal, and I want communities to thrive,” he said.

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