All our waterways are degraded. Horticulture is the future of primary industries. While there is a hint of truth to all of these statements they are too blunt to be of any great worth.
At the effluent expo last week Fonterra’s Charlotte Rutherford outlined how the big co-operative is moving away from a one-size-fits-all approach to environmental management to a more nuanced approach that focuses on the needs of individual farms and catchments. It’s a good move because what works in Canterbury doesn’t work in Waikato. While there might be too many dairy cows in some catchments there might be room for more in others. Mitigation techniques and practices need to vary to match the climate, soils and land use of a farm.
Improving the environment will take time.
A lot of the issues we have were gifted to us by previous generations. Some, we have created. The first step has been to make every farmer aware of the issues and do the basic things to get things moving: fencing waterways, for example.
The next step is more bespoke. It involves those farmers taking a long, hard look at their land, gathering the data, looking at the technology available and creating a plan that will work for them. If every farmer does that we’ll get where we all want to go.
Every farmer I talk to knows what needs to be done and is working to do it. Having the backing of our biggest co-operative will help.
But time is running out. New Zealanders and those who buy our products want to see results or at least see we have a plan and results are coming. Perhaps it is also time for primary processors to build more incentives into their payments to help things along.
Bryan Gibson
