Ecologist, veterinarian and farm adviser Alison Dewes said the $44 million distributed under the first tranche of government funding should be going to help farmers in the affected catchments transition and diversify.
“Most farmers want to do the right thing but on some soils the current farm systems will simply not be viable in the long term and we need support to explore more diverse systems,” she said.
She agreed with the policy released by the Freshwater Action Group in June that included diverting the $400m allocated to the Crown Irrigation Fund to a transition fund for farmers to adjust to less intensive farming in affected catchments.
Dewes said the spill-over losses of nitrogen and pathogens from irrigated coarse soils in Canterbury were systemic and would not be fixed with end-of-pipe fencing and riparian margins. Similarly, peat soils in Waikato faced the same risks.
Massey University freshwater ecology expert Professor Russell Death lamented the planned expenditure for its inability to deal with nitrogen losses, arguably the biggest issue facing freshwater quality.
“There are some good riparian projects there in the funding but they will not address nitrogen losses from farming systems by simply riparian planting.”
There was plenty of evidence and methods available that would help farmers reduce nitrogen losses but they were not being communicated to them.
He agreed DairyNZ’s Pastoral21 programme in Waikato was one programme that highlighted how systemic changes to dairy operations did not necessarily mean farmers would lose money while also reducing their nitrogen footprint.
The Pastoral21 project showed it was possible in four years for a dairy unit to reduce nitrogen losses by almost half using existing technologies and lowered stocking rates, without significantly affecting profit.
The trial used improved genetics and stand-off pads.
Other developments since then that could help farmers transition to an even lower nitrogen footprint included changes in pasture composition to grasses like plantain and low nitrogen sire genetics, launched this year.
“It is not the fact we are dairying but how we are dairying that is having the effect and farmers deserve to be told more about what their options are other than just planting more riparian strips,” he said.
He believed dairy farmers would happily engage with such methods should it be made clear to them how much effect they could have on nitrogen losses over time.
“Pastoral agriculture needs support to explore new ways to farm and in some cases that is diversification from the way we have farmed in the past 50 years,” Dewes said.
