YOUR LEVY AT WORK
GROWERS GET READY AS FEP DEADLINE DRAWS NEAR Words by Kristine Walsh
Some Farm Environment Plans (FEPs) will soon be mandatory in Gisborne and it is hoped lessons learned there will help inform growers around the country when it is their turn. Under the Tairawhiti Resource Management Plan, FEPs will be compulsory in Gisborne from 1 May this year for any farm that grows annual crops or commercial vegetables, or intensively farms animals. And while there has been some confusion around when, where and how FEPs for other producers will become mandatory, growers are being advised to be proactive not only so they are compliant, but as a potential boost for their businesses as well. For those in Gisborne who do have deadlines to meet, Horticulture New Zealand organised workshops that started on 11 February and continued into March to guide them through mapping their properties and working out how they operate around nutrient, irrigation and biodiversity practices.
“Growers want to do the right thing but we do feel it is very hard to find the right information around what that actually is,” says Gisborne Produce Growers Association chair (and Process Vegetables New Zealand board member) Calvin Gedye.
The workshops stepped growers through the process using the Environmental Management System (EMS) add-on module designed, certified and audited by the HortNZowned NZGAP (New Zealand Good Agricultural Practice).
To be fair, GDC was one of the first local bodies to introduce mandatory FEPs and was itself operating in a bit of an information vacuum. It could not, for example, give details on when FEPs would be compulsory for growers of permanent crops because it had “not yet received new directives from central government.”
But even as more than 20 growers gathered for the first workshop, they did not know whether the audited NZGAP add-on would be accepted by Gisborne District Council (GDC).
In that context, HortNZ says the work it and other primary sector organisations are doing with both central government and GDC will likely give clarity to other local bodies as the FEP system rolls out around the country.
“Industry templates are accepted by GDC in their rules, but we are seeking acceptance of the EMS audit in lieu of a Council review of each FEP,” says HortNZ sustainability and extension manager Ailsa Robertson.
In Gisborne, HortNZ is preparing a case study of a local grower to show Council the layers of information that sit behind an NZGAP farm plan “to provide them assurance that growers using the EMS are meeting their requirements.”
“The EMS framework involves a grower using the FEP template, and the independent auditor using the EMS audit checklist. This checklist is aligned with the EMS standards, which are benchmarked to regional council requirements, so these parts all come together in one, comprehensive assurance system for farm plans.”
“So we are actively working to seek recognition of EMS farm plans and the EMS audit,” says HortNZ sustainability and extension manager Ailsa Robertson.
It has been endorsed by Environment Canterbury, but at the time of the first workshop, GDC said it was “currently evaluating whether this pathway can be used as a Farm Environment Plan (and) a decision is expected in the near future.”
10
NZGROWER : MARCH 2021
“At the same time we are lobbying central government to accept industry assurance programmes, like the GAP schemes, in the new national freshwater regulations. If we are successful this would filter down to all councils, which would offer a lot more clarity going forward.” In addition to the Gisborne sessions, HortNZ has already run NZGAP add-on workshops in Pukekohe, and plans to do the same in Levin, Hawke’s Bay, Marlborough, Central Otago and Northland.
