Pollution: Crunch Time For Farmers On Water Quality
March 30th, 2010
The extraordinarily disappointing results of the 2009 report under the Clean Streams Accord are a wake-up call Fonterra heard, but which provoked from the national farming lobby, Federated Farmers, its routine stance of defensive victim-hood. Granted, the deterioration in water quality from dairy farms was not universal – Taranaki remains a shining star with 96% compliance – but other key dairying areas like the Waikato and Canterbury, were backsliders. Part of the reason for the deterioration is standing pads, under-road tunnels and other previously unmeasured sources of dairy effluent included for the first time in 2009. The extent of this factor’s influence on the results is unclear, but it will of course have made a difference. It seems reasonable to hope for substantial improvements in coming years.
There are also clearly some problems with the competence and consistency of the measurements by regional councils across the country. A sub-text of Fonterra’s move to annual on-farm effluent management audits is the audit workforce will watch how councils are performing, as well as helping non-compliant farmers get their act together. However, the gravity of a report reinforcing the “dirty dairying” tag – damaging to tourism as well as giving trade competitors a stick to beat NZ with – was not lost on Agriculture Minister David Carter, who labeled the latest Accord findings “totally unacceptable.” As a signatory to the Accord, Fonterra was well aware the results were bad and was ready immediately with practical damage control which at least proves the country’s largest business and only true multi-national corporation understands how high the stakes are. Tragically, the same cannot be said of the farming lobby. Fed Farmers president Don Nicolson accused Fonterra of “cowering into a corner,” while minimising farmer non-compliance. Some of the problems were no more than the absence of “little certificates on the dairy shed wall.” He went on to suggest this is just more farmer-bashing from city folk who should clean up their own backyard.
In doing so, Fed Farmers further entrenches the impression of an organisation which is not in the business of leading its members, but of echoing the most vocal Luddites among them. In this respect, it is reminiscent of the manufacturing lobby in the 1980s, which railed against economic reforms for years before realising behaving like a loser sets you up for further losses.
How the Fed Farmers position helps the would-be developers in the Mackenzie Basin is anyone’s guess, since it reinforces the perception too many farmers still don’t care about the environment. Since the vast majority of farmers do care, their leaders do them an even greater disservice. And for a Govt walking a knife-edge on the mismanaged issue of mining in the conservation estate, the opportunity to hang tough on the simple issue of streams polluted by intensive dairying is a political gift – as well as being the right thing to do.
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