Effluent focus beings to pay off

08-09-2010 | Not Specified

The dairy industry's focus on improving effluent consent compliance in Canterbury is beginning to pay off.

Preliminary Environment Canterbury 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%, down from 19% 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 was 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 was hoping the information being given to farmers over the coming dairy season would 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 chairman Frank Peters said farmers knew they had to keep improving.

"There's no doubt farmers have become more aware of their responsibilities and of what they can do every day 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 sustainable production general manager 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 and now being used in other regions.

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