Landowners in the Rotorua Lakes catchment are under pressure to reduce nitrogen losses by 100 tonnes a year.
The region has a $40 million fund set aside to enable landowners to sell their nitrogen discharge allowance back to Bay of Plenty Regional Council by switching to less intensive nitrogen uses.
Separate, but linked to the policy, the $1.5m Low N Fund is intended to deliver options for land use rather mitigate existing land uses.
“When it comes to mitigation, some of the existing mitigations are not quite enough in this catchment and it is a challenging catchment because we do not have a great level of diversity in terms of land use,” the council’s principal advisere Anna Grayling says.
“It is pretty much all pastoral as sheep, beef and dairy.”
That had prompted the authority to encourage landowners to think outside the square about what else their land could be used for in a way that reduces its nitrogen footprint.
The catchment includes 26 dairy farms and two years ago the first farmer signed up to the nitrogen payment scheme.
Since then 20 tonnes of nitrogen has been secured from 12 landowners.
“This fund is really about trying to drive larger changes in the catchment than just around mitigation. It’s about seeing how we get people trying to do something completely different.”
Farmer Neil Heather said it remains to be seen how many landowners will come up with alternative uses for their properties.
Many are eying the Environment Court hearing scheduled for early next year when some critical decisions are to be made about iwi land ownership rights and possible impacts on all farmers’ nitrogen rights.
Grayling said while there were multiple reports that could be published on alternative land uses, farmers are going to be more inspired to change if they are given the chance to pursue ideas they have themselves or follow another farmer who has a similarly inspiring idea.
“And they are more likely to follow someone next door who has done it than out of a report.”
Grayling said there is no model being followed for developing the new concepts and she expects a wide range of options.
Some inspiration came from Canopy Tours, an award-winning zip-lining company that takes tourists above the bush on a flying fox.
“Those areas of native bush that farmers may not have thought were worth much could actually lend themselves to this sort of tourist business.”
Options for alternative species planting have also been mooted, with a nut species similar to macadamia showing some potential in the region.
The council is also getting interest in sheep milking as a low-nitrogen pastoral operation that has already proved itself in the similarly sensitive Lake Taupo catchment.
Grayling said the fund does not intend to provide a green light to any type of alternative income scheme dreamed up by landowners and requires a true alternative use of the land.
“For example, you could not simply line up and say you were seeking to start a brewery instead of farming. It might, however, be different if you were also growing hops on the farm while also brewing.”
“And it is not about spending hundreds of thousands of dollars to get going. It is more about getting an indication of where we could go.”
She hopes to see applications for manuka oil growing and processing and kawakawa plantations.
The fund has a minimum funding level of $10,000 with those greater than $200,000 requiring additional funding.
