Farmers hitting Clean Streams Accord targets

Ninety percent of inspected dairy farms in 2009/10 were either fully compliant with regional council plan and Resource Management Act (RMA) consent requirements, or guilty of no more than not complying with technical conditions. 

“The truth is like a good story, it needs to be told,” says Lachlan McKenzie, Federated Farmers Dairy chairperson.

“The good news is that the actual average for farms physically inspected has shown a decreasing trend for significant non-compliance.  From 12 percent in 2007/8, 11 percent in 2008/9 and now 10 percent for the current report period.

“It’s the use of ‘weighted’ averages for significant non-compliance, which turns this positive trend into a negative one.

“For instance, only around one in five of farms in the Waikato were inspected but these results are scaled up to represent all the farms there.  Given the Waikato accounts for a quarter of the national herd, any weighting tends to skew the national snapshot.

“That truth also is that 85 percent of dairy farms now exclude dairy cattle from streams, rivers and lakes.  That’s just shy of the 2012 target of 90 percent, which has now been reached in Northland, Canterbury, Otago and Southland.

“That truth is that 99 percent of dairy farms have waterway crossings and 99 percent have of all dairy farms have systems to manage nutrients. Keeping these nutrients on-farm makes good sense because it’s free liquid fertiliser.

“Like with unemployment back in the 1950’s, we probably know the one percent by name.

“The real story is also told in the 33 percent decrease in infringement notices and a 10 percent reduction in abatement notices.  There’s been a marked fall in prosecutions in the Waikato and down in Otago.

“There have been some standout performances too.  In the Wellington region, full compliance to the 2009/10 season has gone from 53 percent to 83 percent.  Full compliance in Auckland is up considerably on 2008/9 with a 74 percent reduction in significant non-compliance. 

“That’s a similar picture in nine of the 13 council areas, including major dairy areas like Waikato and Canterbury.  Taranaki retains its crown as ‘dairy compliance central’. 

“I do need to make a critical observation about a key change to the terminology used. 

“Last year, non-compliance was more accurately called minor non-compliance for very good reasons. It’s ‘where a rule or resource consent has not been complied with, but there has been no discharge to water and discharge to water is not likely to occur.’ 

“In other words it is a technical breach that has not and will not lead to pollution.  That’s the outcome we and our consumers want but by deleting the word ‘minor’, it will unfairly lead to a negative view about our performance where it really counts.

“Minor non-compliance can be as simple as not displaying a consent on the dairy shed.

“It also seems counter intuitive to see a marked increase in minor non-compliance in the Hawke’s Bay and Southland, only for significant non-compliance to drop by 20 percent in the Hawke’s Bay while remaining static in Southland.

“That doesn’t make sense and you have to wonder if there has been a change of emphasis by some councils.  That’s why Federated Farmers focus is on significant non-compliance and working positively with councils, dairy companies and DairyNZ to reduce it. 

“By informing, benchmarking and improving dairy farmers are getting results where it really counts,” Mr McKenzie concluded.