Key to this requirement is more farm environmental planners than what is currently available to administer and audit the FEPs required within the reforms, says New Zealand Institute of Primary Industry Management (NZIPIM) chief executive Stephen Macaulay.
“There’s no standing workforce of farm environmental planners at this point and it’s going to take time to build that capacity. We are starting from not many, to needing quite a lot,” he said.
The organisation is the peak industry body for rural professionals, with close to 1100 members ranging from farm management advisors, rural bankers, farm accountants, fertiliser consultants, rural valuers, representatives from industry good organisations, CRIs, universities and agribusiness service providers.
In their submission on the freshwater reforms, he says NZIPIM stated the need for 300-400 planners to service both farmers and growers with these FEPs. He says if the industry achieved 200 planners, it would still be a huge challenge to be able to meet the sorts of FEP numbers predicted and submit them to regional councils.
Macaulay says the issue has been discussed with the central Government.
“I understand it’s at the top of mind for a lot of government agencies in terms of how they are going to build this capability and capacity and it’s no easy fix because it’s a challenge to be able to upskill individuals,” he said.
He says any new professionals would not need to be familiar with the rules and understand how environmental planning works within a farm system.
“It won’t be a case of flicking a switch and they are all going to materialise,” he said.
“It’s going to take time and we do have farm environmental planners out there across different regions at the moment and it’s about how we build that next tranche of environmental planners out there.”
He would not be surprised if some farm consultants or other rural professionals become farm environmental planners or offer that service as part of their business.
“The question is how many of those will want to migrate or as part of their service, offer their farming clients FEPs, and that’s a difficult question to answer,” he said.
“I don’t know how many of them would choose to move into that space.”
Macaulay says people with backgrounds in resource management who had not come through traditional rural education backgrounds, such as Lincoln or Massey universities, could also migrate into jobs in the primary industry, such as ecology and other natural sciences.
These people could choose to invest in upskilling themselves into farm systems and move into farm environmental planning.
NZIPIM’s immediate goal is to try and get as much information as possible out to its members about the new rules, as many were still trying to come to terms with what the new regulations meant.
Beyond that, he says they will organise forums to expand the knowledge base of their members, outlining what the rules are and what they look like when applied to a farm operation.
