Thursday, March 28, 2024

ALTERNATIVE VIEW: Farmers step up to the challenge

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I found the Environment Aotearoa 2019 report interesting reading. My view is somewhat different from the anti-farming cacophony from Greenpeace, Forest and Bird and Fish and Game.
Reading Time: 3 minutes

The report identifies nine issues including urban growth reducing versatile land and native biodiversity, that our waterways are polluted in farming areas, our environment is polluted in urban areas and that taking water from rivers for hydro dams changes flows, which affects our freshwater ecosystems.

Other issues include our native plants, animals and ecosystems being under threat, our greenhouse gas emissions being too high and climate change already affecting us.

As you can see there are a considerable number of issues in the report that have nothing to do with farming.

Mind you, that didn’t stop Greenpeace claiming it as a withering expose of dairy’s part in trashing the planet.

It isn’t but I’d expect nothing factual from the highly charged emotion of what is increasingly becoming a one-dimensional, single-issue protest group.

Environment secretary Vicky Robertson, launching the report, said the primary sector is stepping up.

I agree.

There’s more we can do and we’re doing it, which I’ll come to.

Robertson also said there is a huge increase in momentum, not just around environmental awareness but also communities and sectors taking action.

I found that positive and shows we’re all in this together and all sectors can do their part.

There’s little the farming sector can do to reduce the country’s greenhouse gases per person and absolutely nothing regarding the environmental pollution in urban areas. Unsurprisingly, we’re not involved in deep sea fishing either.

I’d also love to reduce lifestyle blocks on productive land.

So, everyone is in this together and farming is but a bit player in the greater scheme of events, albeit an important bit player.

The report itself is interesting but I found some of the conclusions a little hard to follow. It talks of water quality at source in native forests then compares it with quality at the mouth, where the river hits the sea.

That’s fine except the river can start in pristine condition in a native forest then run for 400km through a variety of conditions, some entirely unrelated to farming.

Concluding agriculture is the only problem is simplistic.

I also found the reporting of the document simplistic.

Much was made of the removal of forest cover and I agree that is an issue.

The reality, however, is that from when Maori arrived to when Europeans came here forest cover declined from 85% of land area to just 53%.

The figure in 2010 was 40% land coverage so the majority of forest removal and the inevitable loss of biodiversity happened before the Europeans arrived, certainly before any cows were milked.

Much is made of the threats to our native plants, animals and ecosystems and I accept we have to take more care.

The question I have is how much is to do with human activity and how much is from natural evolution.

I suspect both but again it is not simply a farming issue.

In the previous week there was a report from the Primary Industries Ministry on Nielsen research it commissioned on farmer attitudes to climate change. The findings were really interesting.

For a start, it wasn’t a quick poll or telephone survey. Correspondents were given a booklet containing the questionnaire.

The fieldwork was completed late last year with 707 farmers interviewed with a margin of error of just 3.7%. The questions, unlike a Fish and Game survey, were professionally written and did not attempt to lead the correspondent.

For a start, 92% of farmers were actively involved making their farms more sustainable. That’s up from 78% in 2009.

The initiatives farmers took included riparian and shelter planting, effluent management, waterway control, improved fertiliser management and more efficient irrigation.

That is a major step forward from our sector. Farmers are working hard to improve the environment, as witnessed by reputable research.

In addition, 63% of farmers agree human activity is contributing to climate change, up from 54% in 2009.

So, our critics who say we’re climate change deniers are wrong.

With climate change farmers want to know more, they want to know what they can do. There is little practical, credible information to assist them. 

So, two weeks, two research documents and one lesson coming from both.

Farmers are committed to the environment, we want to know more and we need timely, credible information to assist and we need it now.

That’s not too much to ask.

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