Investment in on-farm effluent systems and a better understanding of consent conditions has paid off with no prosecutions for non compliance by Canterbury's dairy farmers in the latest season.
While the overall rate of full compliance of 72% was similar to the previous season, the fact that there were no prosecutions, showed farmers were taking their responsibilities seriously and the hard work was paying off, said Jessie Chan-Dorman, the chairwoman of Federated Farmers Mid Canterbury dairy section.''
Farmers have really stepped up and are making adjustments to meet conditions in their effluent consents. Whilst we are not at 100% full compliance yet, we are seeing a positive trend with a reduction in the level of non-compliance,'' Mrs Chan-Dorman said.
She said there had been a concerted effort by farmers and the industry with a lot of investment in systems and much better understanding of their consent conditions. Industry education had played a big part as well.''
We are moving to the next step now with effluent, where it is not just about compliance. There are economic benefits on-farm if we can use effluent wisely as a nutrient source.''
Now that we have better outcomes with our use of effluent, the next challenge for Canterbury dairy farmers will be nutrient management, especially in the face of the Land and Water Regional Plan and the Canterbury Water Management Strategy.''
Kim Drummond, Environment Canterbury's director of resource management, said while it was pleasing to see results were on track, the council was determined to see ongoing improvements in compliance. Mr Drummond said it was important to note the compliance results were just one part of how progress was being made by the industry.
The Sustainable Dairying: Water Accord set targets for excluding stock from waterways and for installing bridges or culverts, as well as developing riparian management plans. It also required farmers to provide information to their dairy company to allow for the modelling on nitrogen loss and nitrogen conversion efficiency, with the aim to drive continuous improvement, Mr Drummond said.
All dairy farm effluent systems are required to be capable of being compliant with regional council rules 365 days of the year.''
It is pleasing that over the past season there were no cases which required us to lay charges against a dairying operation - compared with three or four prosecutions in each of the previous few seasons.''
Environment Canterbury compliance officers visited 1093 out of 1100 dairy farms at least once between July 2013 and May 2014. In the cases where significant non-compliance was found, Environment Canterbury officers made follow-up visits until compliance was achieved.''
Part of the collective work to improve the environmental performance of dairy farming is our work with the Canterbury Dairy Effluent Group - a council-industry partnership set up in the 2008-09 season when just 43% of dairy farms were recording full consent compliance,'' Mr Drummond said.''
We look forward to continuing to work with the dairy industry and farmers with a shared understanding of what needs to be done, and what can be done to achieve improved fresh water outcomes in Canterbury.''
The group has agreed to work on a wider range of on-farm environmental management and will change the name from this season to the Canterbury Dairy Environment Group. The industry partners are dairy companies Fonterra, Synlait Milk, Westland Milk Products, and Oceania Dairy, industry groups DairyNZ and Federated Farmers, as well as the South Island Dairying Development Centre and PrimaryITO.