The annual workshop, hosted at Massey University, kicks off later this month. In its 27th year, the world is a very different place to what it was when it all started.
These days, farming within nutrient limits is an imminent – and in some cases, immediate – reality.
Lance Currie, senior technical manager at the FLRC and one of the workshop organisers, has been involved with delivering the workshops since their inception. He says one of the key aims is to attract an audience from a diverse range of industry participants, ranging from farm consultants and other rural professionals to regional council resource managers and central government policy analysts.
“I think now we’ve got a very good audience – we’ve got a lot of the stakeholders that are concerned with [nutrient management] in the same room, at the same time,” Currie said.
“The discussion can actually be quite lively at times, but it is a valuable forum in that we do have them all here – we’re not just preaching to the converted. We’ve got all perspectives represented.”
While farmers are not the target audience for the often highly technical presentations, it is land owners and land managers who will ultimately be affected by these discussions.
“There is no getting away from the fact that wider society is demanding a greater accountability from the environmental sector, and farmers cannot argue that their practices are not having an effect on the environment,” Currie said.
“These support networks, the fertiliser industry and the like, are taking a responsible attitude and trying to do something about it.”
Workshop sessions stretch over three days, with themes including implementing environmental policies, nutrient loss, water quantity, quality and soil services, managing effluent, hill-country management, decision support, managing cows, and precision agriculture.
• Coverage of the workshop will be included in the March issue of Dairy Exporter.
