Under the new rules, the plans are to be a key requirement for farmers, but the Government has yet to define exactly what these plans will entail.
Both Fonterra and Synlait believe these programmes, called Tiaki and Lead with Pride respectively, will deliver on this aspect of the Government’s freshwater reforms.
Fonterra’s general manager for farm excellence – environment Matt Cullen says he was confident the FEPs drawn up under its Tiaka programme plans will align with the new regulatory framework.
The FEPs process is also approved by regional councils which are well-advanced with its freshwater plan changes, such as Canterbury and Manawatu.
“We’re pretty confident that by focusing on those industry-agreed good farming principles that our FEPs will be positioned really well to meet the new national standards whenever those are developed,” Cullen said.
Fonterra has 27 sustainable dairy advisors and is looking to add 10 more by the end of this financial year. Over one-third of the co-operative’s suppliers have plans with the objective of having all its farmers complete this process by 2025.
“We feel we’re well on track to achieve that,” he said.
Cullen says they are a critical part of enabling environmental change on farms and meeting community expectations.
“As one of the largest deliverers of FEPs in the country, our aim in the future is to work much closer with the Government to develop some of those standards before they appear in regulation, so we are getting standards in there that are practical and applicable,” he said.
Synlait’s national milk supply manager David Williams says they were confident about the FEPs created as part of its Lead with Pride programme because of the positive feedback received from farmers.
“We get constant feedback from farmers that this stuff actually helps us and makes us better and more profitable,” he said.
“It takes a lot of work to set up and we will bring it up to the standard that we have set with Lead with Pride and if what the Government comes up with is a bit different, we’ll just tweak it.”
It was the first regional council-approved industry scheme when Canterbury’s regional water plan came into being.
Its suppliers in Waikato will need to be Lead with Pride certified in three years, despite the regional council’s water policy, plan change one heading to the environment court.
About one third of its North Island farms were already Lead with Pride certified and there were other farms working its way through the process.
In the drystock sector, much of the administering of FEPs over the years has been carried out by B+LNZ.
To date, B+LNZ’s North Island general manager Matt Ward says around 5000 sheep and beef farmers had gone through that FEP process.
Its latest version of the plan currently being tested in farmer workshops incorporated biodiversity, soils, freshwater health and greenhouse gas emissions (GHG).
He says it should put sheep and beef farmers in the best position they could possibly be in to meet the GHG emission targets identified through He Waka Eke Noa, as well as new and future rules around freshwater, soils and biodiversity.
“We are confident that we are meeting what we need to do without doing the regulator’s job for them,” Ward said.
“We are wanting the B+LNZ farm plan to be recognised as what the MPI is talking about when it talks about a certified farm plan.”
He says B+LNZ was also working closely with the MPI to get the best steer it could around what the final shape of those FEPs will be.
The plan would also include a bespoke element to it to make it unique for every farm business, making it the farmer’s responsibility to work with their regional council.
