A series of workshops in Otago and Southland this month is aimed at helping farmers meet their environmental obligations under the national policy statement for freshwater management.
The workshops have been organised by Blake Holgate, Rabobank's rural manager sustainable farming systems, for the bank's clients.
The bank saw one of its roles as acting as ''knowledge brokers'' to provide information to clients and clarity around the best course of action to address some of the environmental issues ''starting to play on their mind'', Mr Holgate said.
The purpose of the workshops was to help farmers understand how and why good environmental management was relevant to their farming business as well as how to go about assessing environmental risks on farm.
It was then about the thinking required to develop a plan for mitigating risk, whether it was nitrogen leaching, phosphorous or sediment run off or stock in waterways.
That plan needed to take an integrated approach, be cost effective and fit into the farming system.
A case study, from a South Otago dairy farm, was used to ''bring the farms to the classroom''. Jim Risk, from Ballance Agri Nutrients, also addressed the workshops.
Otago and Southland re gions had been targeted initially, because of some of the ''pressing issues'' those areas faced. It was planned to hold some workshops for sheep and beef farmers later in the year.
Rabobank was also keen to work with other industry groups to ensure there was a co ordinated approach to some of the key issues facing farming, to ensure consistent messages were being conveyed, Mr Holgate said.