New series on effluent

We're already into February and the pressure is on farmers.

Two of the biggest issues facing the industry, as I write, are the environment and animal welfare.

It only takes a few on-farm stuff-ups, or the odd piece of deliberate abuse, to tarnish New Zealand's oft quoted clean and green reputation overseas.

That's why the Waikato Times Farmer highlighted Environment Waikato's revelation last month that a fifth of the region's dairy farmers monitored each year are in serious breach of effluent management rules.

This month we begin a series of articles aimed at helping you, the farmer, learn how to tackle some of the most common problems surrounding effluent management and talking to some of your peers who have solved some of those problems. We've invited DairyNZ, EW and others in the industry to have an input into the series, which begins on pages 18 and 19.

The other big story of the New Year, thanks to Waikato Times Farmer columnist Clive Dalton, is the debate over the body condition scoring system which was sparked by his photographs of emaciated cows at Morrinsville saleyards before Christmas.

Dr Dalton, whose photos sparked two animal welfare investigations as well as a closed meeting, called by Waikato Federated Farmers, explains his motivation on page 8. The Waikato Times has published many letters on the subject since the story broke in December, some accusing Dr Dalton of being an out-of-touch stirrer, but one thing seems to have evaded the critics. Both the Ministry of Agriculture and Forestry (MAF) and the SPCA agree that the cows photographed were deemed unfit for transport and that their sale was illegal. Body condition scoring may be subjective, but the law is not.

It will be interesting to see whether Waikato Federated Farmers president Stew Wadey's call for a simpler body condition score system based on two standards of fat and thin goes anywhere. Probably not if DairyNZ's statement on the subject, which said the debate was going nowhere, is anything to go by. Wadey says the current system is too complicated and his colleague, Dairy Industry Group chairman James Houghton says a lot of dairy farmers choose to ignore the system when making stock management decisions. Something needs to change.

The availability of capital is another big issue for farmers this season, with Fonterra's sudden forecast hike to $6.05 per kg of milk solids having Waikato dairy farmers, suffering the effect of drought, turning to paying off their own debt rather than taking up the restructured co-operative's share offer. Fonterra chairman Sir Henry van der Heyden, whose latest column appears on page 30, was upbeat about a third of farmers taking up extra shares but the truth is Fonterra would have welcomed a higher subscription rate with open arms.

Extra cash in the co-operative would remove the need for the massive amount of borrowing that goes on to fund Fonterra's growth. One of the best examples of that is Fonterra's $50 million coolstore in Crawford St, Te Rapa, which you can't have missed on page 1.

It's good to see, after the disaster at Tamahere, that Fonterra has pulled out all the stops to build a truly world class facility. Fonterra has proven that with the right will and resources any challenge can be overcome.Email me your thoughts at chris.gardner@waikatotimes.co.nz.

- © Fairfax NZ News