Last week, Federated Farmers Southland president Geoffrey Young described the regulations around pugging, deadlines for resowing crop, and paddock slope as "naive and impractical".
He called on farmers to ignore the new requirements on getting resource consents for winter grazing until there was more practicality concerning it, while West Otago farmer Bryce McKenzie mooted a tractor trek to Parliament to show farmers’ feelings over the regulations.
In a statement yesterday, Mr O’Connor said it became apparent that some of the regulations — including ones around winter grazing — needed to be adjusted.
Regulations on pugging depths around fixed water troughs and gateways were not practical, so adjustments had been made to make them more realistic.
Discrete areas around fixed troughs and gateways had now been exempted, while the definition for pugging had been amended to provide more clarity.
"It comes down to the sensible application of necessary regulations. There will be other regulations that will need to be adjusted as we move forward," he said.
He and Environment Minister David Parker were aware of issues with maps and officials from the Ministry for the Environment and the Ministry for Primary Industries were working on making mapping data more accurate.
"The intent is very clear — to clean up our waterways. We’ve made real progress in the area of winter grazing. There are some challenges ahead of us but I’m confident we’ll get this right. Where the regulations are impractical or unclear, we will continue to make adjustments," he said.
New Zealand First agriculture spokesman and South Otago sheep and beef farmer Mark Patterson welcomed the announcement, saying the previous rules were "unpractical and unworkable".
Winter grazing of crops was an important part of farming systems, particularly in Otago and Southland, and it was vital farmers had a pragmatic set of rules to follow which allowed access to winter cropping while ensuring significantly better environmental and animal welfare outcomes, he said.
Federated Farmers water spokesman Chris Allen said the rural lobby organisation’s concerns — prior to the changes — were not just over one single aspect of the direction or trajectory of the new regulations, but the fact the new direction was "complicated, not clear and poorly defined".
"As drafted, many farmers [would] end up being unable to comply, an outcome we are sure is not the Government’s intent."
The Government at last seemed to be "more willing to listen to farmers who know how things actually work in terms of production, the seasons, topography and animal welfare", he said.
