Dairying and Clean Streams Year Six Snapshot

Dairying and Clean Streams Accord Year Six Snapshot Released

The Accord partners today released the Dairying and Clean Streams Accord Snapshot Report for the 2008/09 dairy season, revealing that the management of effluent discharge remains a significant challenge for dairy farmers.

While some progress was made toward achieving three of the Accord targets, the number of farms where effluent discharge complied with resource consents and regional plans, dropped to its lowest level yet.

MAF Director General Murray Sherwin says as the government agency charged with managing the Accord, MAF will support the industry to improve effluence compliance figures while targeting two additional key areas this coming year.

“The first is a need to verify the data gathered in the Accord,” he says.

“Audits were completed by Fonterra in 2004 and 2006. This coming dairy season, MAF will commission a further nationwide audit of data on behalf of the Accord partners.

“The second area of focus is nutrient management – supporting farmers to take the next step from simply having a nutrient budget, which 99% of farms do, to actively managing nutrient inputs and outputs.

“Effective nutrient management is a key part of “smart” farming. Excessive nutrient use and loss indicates a breakdown in the efficiency of the system and means nutrients are being wasted. No farmer wants to run his business via an inefficient system as this is bad from both the environment and farmers’ bottom line.

“A number of nutrient management tools already exist and MAF will continue to work with industry partners to see these used more widely. One such tool is Overseer, which is being continually refined and updated to reflect regional differences.

“The partners have agreed to start collecting data on the uptake of nutrient management systems for next season’s snapshot.

“In addition, the Government, Fonterra, DairyNZ and fertiliser industries have invested heavily in a three-year research programme to improve understanding of the effectiveness and performance variations of nitrification inhibitors across regions.

“The results of this research should provide us with another tool to support effective on-farm nutrient management.”

Mr Sherwin says MAF will continue to work with the industry to provide the support needed to bring about the necessary change in farmer behaviour.

A copy of the full report can be found on MAF’s website under Sectors-Dairy or visit www.maf.govt.nz/mafnet/sectors/dairy/index.html

ENDS

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