Clean Streams Accord progress in Wellington region

Improving levels of dairy farming compliance in the Wellington region reflect growing collaboration between the regional council, dairy farming organisations and the region’s dairy farmers, Greater Wellington Chair Fran Wilde says.

The Dairying and Clean Streams Accord Snapshot of Progress report shows that 92% of dairy farmers in the Wellington region were fully compliant with the Resource Management Act and resource consent conditions in the 2010/11 year, a significant increase from 53% in 2007/08.

Over the same period minor non-compliance has fallen from 41.2% to 6.2% and significant non-compliance dropped from 5.9% to 1.6%.

“We believe that working closely with farming industry bodies and farmers is contributing to improved levels of compliance and a move towards better farming practices generally,” Fran Wilde says.

Over the past few years Greater Wellington has supported DairyNZ and Fonterra in running on-farm seminars to improve practices around dairy effluent management. It has also worked with these and other farming organisations on a guideline for managing stock around waterways.

“Collaboration between us and the farming community is absolutely imperative to identify and spread best practice rather than solely focusing on the ambulance at the bottom of the cliff – enforcement action.

“As the snapshot shows there is still more work to do in our region, and we’re working closely with farmers, farming bodies, environmental groups and the wider community to find durable and robust solutions to water quality, water allocation and land use issues through a new regional plan.

“It’s clear that our community wants an improvement in water quality. By working together, we have a much better chance of success,” Fran Wilde says.