Dairy farmers struggle with cleanup efforts

Canterbury's dairy farmers have managed only a slight improvement in their environmental compliance in the past year.

Environment Canterbury's dairy report for the 2008-09 season showed 19.3 per cent of the 851 properties monitored had significant or major levels of non-compliance, compared with 20 per cent in the previous season. This amounts to 164 farms in Canterbury.

The report covers Environment Canterbury's regulation and enforcement activities related to dairy-shed effluent.

Of the farms monitored, 43.2 per cent were fully compliant, down from 45.8 per cent in the previous year.

Each consent has a number of conditions, and there was 88.2 per cent full compliance with conditions, compared with 89.5 per cent last year.

Federated Farmers dairy vice-chairman Willy Leferink said farmers were making good progress in cleaning up their act. He said there had been a drastic improvement during the past half year, which was not reflected in ECan's report.

"We're making some huge progress in adhering to the conditions and working to get better outcomes."

He said the amount of non-compliance by Canterbury dairy farmers was a bad look for the industry.

"We want everyone to be compliant, but that's a long-term goal."

Education and a change of attitude by the region's dairy farmers was the key to improving non-compliance rates, Mr Leferink said.

The number of farms monitored by ECan rose 23 per cent from 696 monitored in the previous season.

The report said the number of farmers applying nitrogen at a rate below 100kg per hectare per year rose from below 50 per cent to 60 per cent. The rate of nitrogen application to pasture is limited to 200kg per hectare to reduce it leaching into groundwater.

Regulatory overview committee chairwoman Bronwen Murray said there was consistent trend over the past four years of a reduction in application rates. This showed farmers were spreading effluent over larger areas and making better use of the resource.

"This is an example of best practice exceeding the regulatory requirements," she said.

"It is also worth noting Canterbury continues to have very low levels of direct discharges of dairy effluent to surface water, with only six occurrences observed during the year."

- © Fairfax NZ News