"I believe we have an enormous lot [of common ground] but we're never going to achieve that if we keep punching," regional council chief executive Graeme Martin says.
At the Federated Farmers national conference in Auckland last week, FF dairy chairman Willy Leferink, of Ashburton, said the Fonterra Taf vote was not the critical issue facing dairy farmers, it was the way regional councils were setting limits for freshwater management.
"On one hand, they [the Government] want lots of export earnings from us ... on the other hand, they've put in place policies that give over-eager regional council staff a blank cheque guaranteeing their wages as crusaders for the environment."
The Government's requirement that councils need to set limits on water by 2030 under a National Policy for Freshwater Management, meant councils were forging ahead with little consultation with the communities affected, Mr Leferink said.
The Otago Regional Council's approach to setting nutrient and bacteria standards for water leaving farms was a bit heavy-handed, he said.
"These are measured by an annual limit of 30kgha and an even stricter annual limit of 10kgha, if a farm falls into a sensitive groundwater zone.
"Ten kilograms of nitrogen per hectare puts farmers out of business."
Instead of putting in place such regulations, councils needed to wait until the science and "hard numbers" backed up their claims.
The Overseer programme used to measure nutrient limits had a 20% margin of error, meaning cases would end up in the Environment Court and be thrown out due to inaccuracies, he predicted.
"The science is not rock solid enough."
In Holland, the nitrogen balance per hectare was about 229kgha, in Belgium it was 184 and in Germany 113. Here is New Zealand it was 46kgha, Mr Leferink said.
The Otago Regional Council's regulations would require multimillion-dollar investments by farmers without providing them with any compensation.
"It's out of this world."
That in turn would have an impact on communities as dairy farmers were big employers and spenders.
"It'll be the community that pays with big price."
Mr Leferink believed there were ways to achieve the environmental outcomes needed without impacting on the economy of dairy farming.
"It will not happen overnight.
"It'll take time, but until we've got the science developed we've got to get smart," Mr Leferink said.
Otago Regional Council chief executive Graeme Martin said Mr Leferink's speech contained a lot of inconsistencies and misunderstandings so he invited him, his president and policy adviser to visit Otago and meet the regional council to discuss common ground.
The belief anybody who wanted to protect the environment was anti-production was not true in Otago's case, Mr Martin said.
"We need primary producers, we need dairy."
While critical of the council's approach, the dairy industry had been part of the development of the Overseer system.
"If it is not good enough, what are they doing about it?"
Government and industry had failed for the past decade to focus on the tools needed.
The council had invested in research and now believed there were sufficient tools to move towards regulation with transition times which were open to debate, Mr Martin said.
