Dairy effluent compliance continues to improve

Sixty-five per cent of Canterbury dairy farms were fully compliant with their effluent discharge consent or permitted activity conditions, an improvement from 59 per cent compliance in the previous season.

Environment Canterbury compliance officers visited each of the region’s 900 dairy farms at least once during the 2010/11 dairy season, which ran until the end of May.

Environment Canterbury Commissioner Tom Lambie said it is very encouraging to see the ongoing improvement in the level of full consent compliance among dairy farmers.

“This improvement reflects the work done in collaboration with industry partners and other stakeholders.”

Environment Canterbury in 2008 initiated a meeting with industry partners, Fish & Game and Forest & Bird, to discuss ways to improve levels of dairy effluent compliance. A combined industry and Environment Canterbury group has been working collaboratively since then to improve the rate of dairy effluent compliance.

“There is increasing awareness among dairy farmers of the need to improve their environmental performance.. The compliance figures show Canterbury’s dairy farmers are making good progress in these areas.”

“There has also been a lot of work from the industry partners to provide information, encourage training, and help farmers improve their systems and infrastructure, resulting in improved compliance and environmental performance.”

The rate of minor non-compliance among dairy farmers also fell to 26 per cent, from 33 last year. Examples of minor non-compliance include an incomplete management plan or minor ponding of dairy effluent.

Significant non-compliance issues include effluent ponding, discharge of effluent too close to waterways, as well as nitrogen overloading (an insufficient area for the amount of effluent discharge).

“We are continuing to work closely with farmers and industry partners to understand the reasons behind the occurrence of significant non-compliance and will continue to develop and implement tactics to reduce the rate of non-compliance,” said Tom Lambie.

The full Canterbury Dairy Report for the 2010/11 season will be released by Environment Canterbury later in the year once more detailed analysis, including regional statistics across Canterbury has been completed.

The industry partners are dairy companies Fonterra, NZ Dairies and Synlait, and industry groups DairyNZ and Federated Farmers, as well as the South Island Dairying Development Centre and AgITO.