Dairy industry expects improvement to kick-start

Dairy industry expects improvement to kick-start a trend

The dairy industry’s focus on improving effluent consent compliance in Canterbury is beginning to pay off, according to figures released by Environment Canterbury today.

The preliminary monitoring figures for the 2009/10 dairy season – which covers the year to the end of May – show the rate of significant non-compliance fell to 8 percent, down from 19 percent in the previous season.

DairyNZ, Fonterra, Synlait, New Zealand Dairies and Federated Farmers have been working with Environment Canterbury to provide information and advice to farmers on adopting good effluent management practices.

DairyNZ strategy and investment leader – sustainability, Dr Rick Pridmore, said the most encouraging aspect of the results is the fall in significant non-compliance.

“These are generally the cases which can cause the problems. It's a real credit that farmers have more than halved these incidents.”

He said the industry is hoping the information being passed on to farmers over the coming dairy season will lead to year-on-year improvements in compliance.

“With the effort I know farmers are putting into this area on a daily basis, and the support the industry is making available to them to get this right, we aim to cut out these cases of significant non-compliance altogether and drive some real improvements in the way we manage our nutrient resources.”

Mid Canterbury Federated Farmers dairy chair Frank Peters said that farmers know they have to keep improving.

“There's no doubt farmers have become more aware of their responsibilities and of what they can do everyday on their farms to keep them operating in a compliant way.

“These results are a great start and although we're not finished yet, the main thing is that the trend is heading in the right direction.”

Fonterra general manager sustainable production, John Hutchings, said the group was looking for improvements to back up the gains made last December when the Environment Canterbury dairy report for the 2008/09 season showed signs of improvement.

“We saw green shoots of improvement last season and committed to this initiative and put more resource into this area of our business.”

He said farmers were receiving information on how to self-assess their systems at the start of the dairy season – an approach launched in Canterbury which is now being used in other regions across the country.

“The progress is pleasing but the work starts again on farms over the coming weeks when they pull out their checklists and assess their options to help them comply with their resource consents.”

Environmental manager Lucy Bowker, who works for Dunsandel-based dairy processor Synlait, has been heavily involved in the development of educational resources for effluent management. She has also run workshops for dairy farmers and their advisors in the area.

“Involving other key support industries – like the effluent and irrigation equipment designers and suppliers in this region – is an important part of getting consistent and accurate information out to farmers.

“We’re working for a common good and now there are people in the dairy industry who farmers can call for expert advice in this area so they can make better decisions around how they operate their systems and equipment.”

At the beginning of the season, all dairy consent holders were sent information on how to self-assess their systems so they could make any system upgrades, carry out maintenance and training, and complete the administrative requirements of their consents.

New Zealand Dairies quality and compliance manager Shane Lodge said that approach has been important.

“Getting the right advice out to people at the right time has meant farmers have the tools to go through a thorough process and check how their operation measures up.

“The good thing about this result is that even this little bit of good news will spread fast around the Canterbury dairy community, which will make farmers very determined to go one better over the coming season.”

ENDS

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