Wednesday, Oct 16, 2019
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THE INDEPENDENT VOICE OF MID CANTERBURY
A big crowd turned out to the Ashburton Trust Event Centre on Monday night to hear more about the freshwater regulations. PHOTO JAIME PITT-MACKAY 141019-JPM-0028
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Speak up, farmers urged By Linda Clarke
linda.c@theguardian.co.nz
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Hundreds of Mid Canterbury farmers will be telling Government about their good environmental work as part of feedback on proposed contentious freshwater regulations. Other farmers, however, are thinking about a tractor march in protest. The reforms are causing angst in the rural community, where Mid Canterbury farmers are already on a journey to changing farm practices to reduce their impact on the environment and improve water quality. Their work is paying off but they say the new national blanket proposals are akin to using a sledgehammer to crack a walnut, when it was more practical and sensible to progress regional rules that would deal with specific catchment problems. The new national environmental
standards will be set by Cabinet and are not subject to appeal. They currently include rules about winter grazing, wetlands and nitrate limits for waterways. Mid Canterbury farmer Jo Burke was among the 500 people who packed into the Ashburton Trust Event Centre on Monday to hear more about the impact of the proposals. She said she was cynical about the decision-makers reading farmers’ submissions. She said 14,000 Dutch farmers faced with the same issues had recently driven their tractors to the Hague, causing thousands of kilometres of traffic jams. They had been supported by the Dutch people. In New Zealand, she said, the Government was still painting good, clean farmers as “dirty”. “How can 20-odd people end up dictating the paperwork we will have to deal with in the next 30 years instead
of farming our properties. I would love to have a tractor on the main highway. I think everyone would do in their local area. “If there are no farmers there is no food, and if there is no food there is no future.” Federated Farmers, who organised the meeting, provided policy experts who have been poring over the proposals. They said Government appeared to be in a time warp and thought farmers were still using practices from 20 years ago. But the reality was that farmers, at least in Canterbury, had recognised the impact of intensive farming and were already working towards tough new limits set by Environment Canterbury.
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