For the last two years the DairyNZ strategy and investment leader for sustainability has been a dairy representative on the Collaborative Stakeholders Group (CSG) of Healthy Rivers Waiora, formulating recommendations for the future of the Waikato River. He’s also a shareholder in a 110ha effective farm south of Te Awamutu, which was converted to dairying four years ago. It now milks 300 cows run under a low-input system.
Pridmore estimated he spent one to two days a week involved with the CSG’s work at the start, building to three days a week in recent months.
“I have a three-foot high stack of papers in my office,” he said.
“It never goes away. There’s always someone who’s concerned or you need to talk to.”
The CSG’s recommendations now need approval from local iwi groups and the Waikato Regional Council before they become part of the notified plan change expected to happen at the end of September, when there will be a call for public submissions. Pridmore’s fellow dairy representatives on the CSG were south Waikato farmer George Moss and Charlotte Rutherford, Fonterra’s sustainability policy and strategy manager. Others on the group included James Houghton, a former Waikato Federated Farmers’ president, representing rural advocacy as well as more than 20 sector and community representatives.
The CSG’s most recent work has been on compiling Section 32 of its recommendations which details why it made the decisions it did and its justification for them.
“It shows where the tradeoffs were made,” he said.
“The collaborative process has definitely brought out better science and each sector has been able to get a perspective of others’ viewpoints.”
Pridmore said they struggled in the early group meetings but got to know each other’s sector better with a series of site visits around Waikato. Regional council and iwi observers started to attend meetings six months later, listening in on the debate.
“One year on the CSG occasionally broke into working groups which these observers participated in,” he said. “That helped progress a lot.”
Throughout this time there were a series of public meetings for dairy farmers, fronted by Moss. CSG members from other sectors also attended some to better understand feedback dairying delegates were receiving.
Pridmore not only dealt with scientific and economic information but went out of his way to make contact with hundreds of farmers, with a number questioning why the dairy industry was going through the CSG process in the first place.
‘At the end of the day we have to remember that most dairy farmers care about nitrogen as it greatly influences wealth and opportunity.’
“Some just wanted to go to court but we hadn’t done well when we’d done that in the past,” he said.
“When it’s left to a judge to make the decision the cards can fall many different ways and some of these we may not like.”
Farmers also asked if appropriate pushback was being given to some of the attacks on dairying.
Pridmore said he and Moss did question whether rules were being made to see how low nutrient levels could go, or whether they were there to fix problems dairying was part of.
“We did push back hard when there was little perceived benefit from a proposed action.”
But some actions like fencing streams were necessary to improve the river.
“Most of the actions proposed by the CSG will end up hurting the economy to some extent.”
Good information was provided by economists on dairying’s worth to rural communities and on the contribution of dairying to the national economy.
“There were a lot of different views about how the plan change should proceed,” he said.
“It gives an indication of how much compromise there was.”
No sector won out of the CSG deliberations, he said.
“If that had happened we would have said ‘Give a little more’.’”
The first big decision for the CSG was the timeframe for reaching the Vision and Strategy for the Waikato River and its tributaries.
While councils around the country had looked at 10 to 20-year timeframes the CSG decided 80 years was a more appropriate time in which to see the water quality improvements it wanted.
“It was one of the most audacious things that we could get support for and was a big risk to our credibility as a group,” Pridmore said.
“But because we had a good process a lot of people throughout the region went along with it.”
The CSG used the modelled results to guide the direction of travel rather than form a strict timing template.
Rick Pridmore – take a considered view.
“Who knows what the actual numbers will be in 10 years time or more,” Pridmore said.
“There will be better science, more innovations, and quite possibly a different community view of the world. This was one of the reasons we decided not to allocate contaminant discharge allowances to farms in the first 10 years. There was so much we didn’t know and the consequences of getting it wrong were huge.
“One thing we do know is that any future allocation will not involve grandparenting of existing discharges. Everyone hates that word.”
The CSG was able to use the experience of other councils such as Horizons and Environment Canterbury to decide that wasn’t the best way to go.
Pridmore likens the first-decade phase of Healthy Rivers Waiora to “getting the boat moving”.
“People don’t like change but getting farm plans established will help,” he said.
Dairying is in a better situation than other farming sectors because much has been achieved under the Clean Streams Accord. With Fonterra’s sustainable milk plans farmers already have nutrient loss data benchmarking them against other farms in their area.
“Dairy farmers deserve a lot of praise because they weren’t seen as being in denial,” he said.
Four contaminants will be targeted in the farm plans; sediment, phosphorus, nitrogen and pathogens, indicated by the presence of E coli. In dairying’s case farm management practices including riparian planting to control run-off and creating wetlands will need to be used to reach the goals for the first 10 years.
Pridmore said nitrogen reduction was more focused on the dairy sector because it was responsible for the lion’s share of this nutrient getting into Waikato waterways.
“It’s hard making rules to reduce nitrogen loss as farmers didn’t know when they bought their properties, or when they intensified their farming practices, that they could be subject to different rules to those operating at the time,” he said.
“You just can’t say, ‘Tough luck, you lose’.
“Society has changed its mind and we have to work our way through this.
“There’s no good analysis of what society’s changing expectations will mean to the country, other than water quality will improve.”
He sympathises with many farmers’ belief some of the extreme views of environmental lobbyists need to be tempered by decision-makers. However, he cautions them.
“At the end of the day we have to remember that most dairy farmers care about nitrogen as it greatly influences wealth and opportunity,” he said.
“Currently we are viewed by other sectors as the holders of this wealth and opportunity.
“If we don’t show we are being responsible with nitrogen and having these benefits flow through to the communities we live in, we will struggle to maintain our current position.”
Look before leaping
Rick Pridmore encourages dairy farmers to look carefully at Healthy Rivers Waiora proposals when they’re first released.
“Don’t rush in, take a considered view,” he said.
“Don’t panic. Think about all the options then make your decisions.”
This was particularly relevant, for example, when it came to considering buying land in an area that might not be suitable for dairying in future.
“Test yourself,” he said.
“If you do so dairy farmers should do well.”
He emphasised it wouldn’t be a case of farmers having the new rules thrown at them then being left on their own to comply with them.
“Whatever happens DairyNZ and the dairy companies will be here to help them through,” he said.
“If a transitional change can be made once they won’t have to do it again.”
He believed most farmers would focus on the first 10-year period but warned things could happen in that time that would affect their farm operations over the next 10 years.
“So be careful,” he said.
“It would be silly to pick a winner. It’s better to evaluate everything you do and work out if you can still do it. Carry on as long as you can and when there’s certainty, act. Don’t panic until you know the route of travel and it may not be as bad as you think it is.”
On his own farm he said that would mean staying with a lower input system unless the milk price moved up.
“We’ll do what we do now for as long as we can to keep costs low.”
