Freshwater
While improvements to water quality do need to be made, our predominantly extensive sheep and beef farm systems lead the way on water quality.
Some of the Government’s proposed Essential Freshwater Policies are impractical, ineffective and we think there is a better way.
Low slope map
The Government is proposing to use a one-sized-fits-all rules and map of the country to determine whether a farmer needs to put a fence in to exclude its animals from water ways.
Farmers agree with the principle of stock exclusion. Good progress has already been made in fencing many of the areas that need to be.
It is, however, impossible to map the entire country at the paddock scale with enough detail to determine whether a fence is needed or not. Even though the Government has improved the map, it admits that more than 10 percent might be inaccurate.
There is currently no way for a farmer to appeal if the map is inaccurate and farmers will have to spend a lot of money doing unnecessary fencing, putting their livelihood at risk.
We urge the Government to replace the map with a general stock exclusion rule that regional councils could enforce.
At a minimum, farmers must be able to appeal if the map is inaccurate, or there are special regional circumstances where fencing may not be necessary such as very low stocking rates, pristine water quality, or constant flooding risk.
The rule is supposed to come into effect for beef cattle in 2025, so farmers need certainty now that these issues will be fixed.
Freshwater farm planning
We are concerned about the direction of the Government’s approach to a mandatory freshwater farm plan.
In particular, that there will be too much prescription, requiring all farmers to do things even if it is not necessary on their farm, incurring unnecessary costs.
A one-size-fits-all approach just does not work at the farm level as farms are so different. We want thresholds for requiring a freshwater farm plan and the plans have to be practical, risk - and outcomes-based, not input - (prescription) based.
Slope rule for winter grazing
Some progress has been made on fixing the winter grazing rules, but the Government has enforced the rules before putting in place the promised alternative pathway. Thousands of farmers across the country are having to get a costly consent, rather than do a farm plan.
We would still like to amend the slope rule for winter grazing from 10 degrees to 15 degrees because the quantity of effort and consents required does not match the environmental risks at the lower threshold.