A plan begins with a farm assessment, which should be followed by responses to possible environmental risks in a detailed strategy.
“The key environmental risks on farms are nitrogen, phosphorus, sediment and bacteria loss to water ways,” Hugget said.
The first step in making a plan is to use an aerial farm map to mark farm resources and pinpoint likely hot spots for potential environmental risks.
“Look at each paddock separately and identify key natural resources on the farm that are of value to the business and environment, like protected bush, existing erosion control, wetlands, sediment traps and waterways where stock are excluded.
“These must be marked on the farm map,” Huggett says.
Additionally, mark any priority areas that might need maintenance or could be managed differently, such as hot spots for nutrient, sediment and bacteria loss. They include areas of erosion, stock crossings, unfenced waterways, fragile soils, offal holes, chemical storage sheds and other areas where surface runoff could carry high contaminant loads to waterways.
“Focused questions are needed, like does the paddock pug, do stock enter a river or creek, where is runoff going, and what are the results of fencing or stock exclusion in certain,” she says.
Responses to identified risks should be summarised in a written document and ranked according to priority. The responses must be specific and measurable, have a specific person or team assigned to complete them, be realistic and have a time frame tied to intended achievement.
“Often hot spots are areas one drives past every day,” she says.
Many concerns on a farm are linked to management of water on slopes and resultant losses of sediment or nutrients.
Excessive amounts of nutrients in a water body can lead to eutrophication (excess nutrients in water), algal blooms and, in the worst case, nitrate toxicity, all of which can which can cause problems for the health of waterway ecosystems and the humans and animals who drink the water or use it for recreation.
Losses of nitrogen and phosphorus do not occur in the same way.
Phosphorus binds to soil particles and is mostly lost into waterways in runoff. Nitrogen will leach through the soil profile if not used by plants, Huggett says.
Keeping stock excluded from streams through targeted fencing and provision of reticulated water to stock instead of open access to waterways could be part of managing water quality.
If a farm stocking rate is higher than 18su/ha then urine can become a nitrogen leaching source and if cattle make up more than 20% of the stocking units leaching might occur as cattle urinate more than sheep and do so in one general area.
A plan is not just a list of boxes to be ticked or conditions to be met but every farm must be treated as unique with its own challenges and solutions.
“Different regional rules may, for instance, have different definitions of what a stream is, with one region considering only those that run through winter as a stream and another region excluding waterways that don’t flow year-long. Regional criteria might often determine responses to challenges,” she says.
All responses are dependent on what funds are available in the business but management is usually the cheapest way to deal with most on-farm issues.
Erosion risks can be classified into negligible, slight, moderate and severe.
A slight risk area would, for instance, be an area where there is evidence of past erosion that is hard to manage and where a major rainfall could affect production or threaten some infrastructure. A severe risk would be an area where erosion is obvious and where recovery of pasture after heavy rain could threaten production and the long-term business.
Curbing erosion could include measures such as strategic tree planting to protect fragile soils or be as easy as changing the stock class grazed in at-risk paddocks by, for example, replacing cattle with sheep.
There are many simple solutions to environmental challenges.
In hill country farmers must consider the direction of their cultivation because it might lead to large areas of bare soil and erosion. They should also consider maintaining cover throughout the year. In a worst case cultivated land should be planted to grass and left as grazing.
On a deer farm where deer wallow near a water source, the wallow can simply be filled up and another one dug where runoff cannot enter a water source.
“Grass buffer strips are also a great and simple solution.
“The long grass will slow the water down and allow sediment to settle before it reaches a waterway. Grass buffer strips can be used around crops and along tracks to filter run-off. It’s all about slowing water down,” Huggett says.
“Some farmers are short grass farmers. One can’t see it but one gets sheet erosion if grass is too short and tiny soil particles wash off with rain. Maintaining good cover means better soil protection, stability and less erosion. Pugged soil, for instance, gets a surface cap which reduces water infiltration and will cause run-off. One must consider what stock class to put where and in what season to mitigate this,” she says.
Having a plan is an important part of the paper trail for farmers exporting to high end markets under programmes like Taste Pure Nature or being audited as part of the Farm Assurance Programme.
Beyond assessments and responses it is important to record achievements and goals met and review the approach yearly.
