A rally at the Gore A & P Showgrounds set the scene with the tractor drivers and an audience addressed by protest organisers Laurie Paterson and Bryce McKenzie, and Gore mayor Tracy Hicks.
A call to ignore the new freshwater regulations was greeted with applause.
When members of the audience were given the opportunity to speak, Waikaka farmer Brian Howden encouraged farmers to be united in ignoring the reforms.
Mr Howden said if farmers carried on farming as they had been the Government would be powerless to do anything about it.
"They can't put us all in jail and they can't fine us all," Mr Howden said.
Vehicles then drove from the showgrounds up Gore's Main St and back.
Agriculture Minister Damien O’Connor has previously said the intent of the regulations was very clear — to clean up the country’s waterways. Where the regulations were impractical or unclear, adjustments would continue to be made.
- Sandy Eggleston
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Comments
Those waterways do not belong to just farmers, they belong to all of us. It is not your right to treat them like your own personal sewerage system.
As Mr Howden implies, you deserve to be put in jail for what you are doing to the rivers.
Change the law, farmers that pollute waterways should have all assets seized and be thrown on the street where they can enjoy the good life on the dole. Don't bother jailing them, remove them from their entitled lifestyle and let intelligent people farm the land in their stead.
Farmers have had it too good for too long.
Goodness me! Don't we get tetchy when we are forced to clean up the mess we made, and, Horror of Horrors, have to pay for it.
These entitled, white, baby boomer, generational farmers have only their great grandparents, grandparents and parents to blame for their situation. They are the ones who over generations of poor land and water management have created the problem.
The other thing these idiots are overlooking is that by refusing to clean up their mess they are endangering their markets. The countries that buy our produce are demanding that we produce evidence that the land producing the goods are being farmed sustainably. Their citizens are demanding it. If we can't demonstrate that we are environmentally responsible we will not sell our agricultural products on the international market. This is not fanciful Greenie political correctness. It is real and happening now. Saying we are green is not enough, we need to be able to prove it. These selfish, short term thinking, profit driven morons are to dumb to see it or understand it.
You can roll along in your tractors to 'make a statement' but ordinary Kiwis are sick of your pollution and this kind of behaviour isn't going to win hearts and minds is it?
Wow, the ignorance of these comments is at the level of Trump on covid. Have any of them been on a farm or looked at what they are trying to do (at their own expense) and the stupid rules they are meant to follow? Time the government worked WITH the farmers instead of just bagging them, they will get much further that way.
David. in answer to your questions. Yes, I have been a farmer.
Your response is that of the entitled who always want to privatize their profits while socializing their costs. Farming, with the help of the banks and the university educated idiots in the farm advisory game has got itself in a mess.
You're not special, if you can't afford to farm your land cleanly and sustainably, then sell it to someone who can.
If you're not smart enough to farm your land cleanly and sustainably, then sell it to someone who is.
If you lose money that's tough for you, but frankly, who cares, you were fouling the waterways and you therefore are not entitled to sympathy.
I'll bet that like almost every farmer I have ever known you've slagged off dole bludgers and union workers often in your conversations. If you can't figure this out then you have the chance to enjoy all the benefits that they have. We know what farmers are like, stop pretending that if you are forced off your land then the world will end, farmers are not special. Stop fouling the rivers and start paying your dues.
Doing the 'haute Normandie'. Wellington was the suggested destination.