Fish & Game Backs Federated Farmers’ Call for Dairy Moratorium

18 March 2015

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

Fish & Game is supporting Federated Farmers’ call for a halt to developing new dairy farms in the Waikato region.

The call has come from Waikato Federated Farmers’ president Chris Lewis, who suggests it is time to introduce a moratorium on converting the region’s exotic forests into dairy pasture. He believes the moratorium is needed because of water quality, the availability of water and the cost of meeting tight new environmental rules.

Mr Lewis is reported as saying Waikato farmers are concerned about the region’s environment, the way water is presently being allocated and sustainability.

Fish & Game Chief Executive Bryce Johnson is backing Mr Lewis’s call for a moratorium.

In the last five years, new dairy farms developed in Waikato have added more than a quarter of a million extra cows to the region’s pastures.

“The Waikato Regional Council needs to ensure dairy conversions are properly regulated and the creation of new dairy farms, and the size of those new farms, is properly addressed in its regional plan,” Mr Johnson said.

“Large scale conversions have a significant impact on the environment because of both their nitrogen footprint and demand for water. There are simply too many unknowns and the potential consequences too irreversible for wholesale dairy conversion of forestry to continue.”

“Forestry has a much smaller environmental impact than dairy and if there was ever a time for caution, this is it.”

“It isn’t just Waikato. All regional councils need to start taking these factors into consideration so they can properly manage and limit the significant impact industrial scale dairying has on the environment,” he said.

Mr Johnson said the suggestion of a moratorium indicates there is a positive and welcome change in thinking now emerging in Federated Farmers’ leadership. He says it is time dairy industry leaders followed their example and demonstrated that they too are looking at the bigger picture.

“Modern, progressive farmers understand that they must work with the environment, not against it, if they are to have a future. That long term future must be environmentally sustainable if farmers are to win back their social licence to operate.”

“It is just plain good business sense to have a clean environment and sustainable, profitable farming,” he said.

“By ensuring rivers and streams are clean enough to swim, fish and gather food in, farmers are also demonstrating to the public they care about the environment, an area where they have lost the public’s confidence in recent years,” Mr Johnson said.

“Good on Federated Farmers for stepping up on this issue.”

ENDS

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