Commissioned by the Ashburton District Council (ADC), the Land and Water Management Economic Impact Report quantifies the expected impact of the freshwater reform on the region’s farms agricultural businesses.
It conservatively estimates that farm profitability across the district will decline by $57.9 million, or 83%, a year, while farm expenditure within the district will fall $139.9m (23%).
Federated Farmers freshwater spokesperson Chis Allen believes the actual economic impact will be greater when all aspects of the policy are implemented.
The organisation’s Mid-Canterbury president David Clark agreed, saying the council report only looked at the cost of reducing groundwater nitrates to the Environment Canterbury (ECan) level of 6.9 milligrams per litre (mg/L).
Given the profound change required to farming and the potential impact, Clark says Parker needs to front rural communities, something he has not done since the essential freshwater reforms were released.
“It is time for him to front up, to get in front of the community and explain the economic impact for rural and urban communities and how the reforms are going to benefit them and then justify the economic impact,” Clark said.
Clark says the reforms do not have community buy in and this report will only reinforce that.
“Farmers are sick and tired of David Parker saying good farmers already comply, it will be easy to get there and they will receive more money for product, when this report shows that will not be the case,” he said.
Clark says the council report reinforces an earlier study on the impact on Canterbury’s Selwyn-Waihora catchment of trying to meet lower nitrate levels.
That found the only way to conform was to replace virtually all dairy and arable farms with dryland sheep operations.
The Government is still to determine permitted nitrate levels, but Clark says the ADC report did not look at reducing those below 6.9mg/L, the cost of which will be prohibitive.
ADC mayor Neil Brown says the report shows that to succeed, the freshwater policy needs to be carefully balanced with economic sustainability.
“Meaningful change cannot happen overnight,” Brown said.
“In addition to time, it is critical that our industry and community are supporting innovation and filling gaps in knowledge.
“This will help our farming practices to evolve so that we can continue producing food and fibre and minimise the negative unintended economic consequences for our community.”
Meanwhile, Federated Farmers is supporting a call from the Parliamentary Commissioner for the Environment for changes to the way investment is made into environmental research.
Close to $500m is spent each year, but Simon Upton says the way public funds are currently invested in environmental research is fragmented, making it difficult to respond to long-term environmental problems such as climate change, freshwater quality and biodiversity loss.
Allen says a Federated Farmers analysis of environmental reports, including Our Freshwater 2020, reveals they fall well short of delivering the authoritative data and robust analysis needed to support environmental investments and government policy.
