Local Focus: Our paddocks of discontent and the future of feedlots

Cattle in swampy feedlots is not what you'd expect from New Zealand farming, but it's legal, with Hawke's Bay Regional Council consenting 19 feedlots this winter.

While taking extra food to animals in winter is an established part of farming systems, some farms take it to another level.

Aerial photos taken in July by Above Hawke's Bay show it isn't a pretty practice, with drains blocked to prevent runoff making some paddocks a slurry of mud and sewage.

Council compliance manager Nick Zaman confirmed there were 19 feedlot consents during winter.

"It's where animals have supplementary food brought on and they're there for 15 of 30 days," he said.

He said compliance was "pretty good", with only minor transgressions.

Aerial inspections of feedlots are part of the Hawke's Bay Regional Council's regime. Photo Supplied

"We visit all our feedlots every year, so they get a compliance inspection.

"We monitor to ensure there is no runoff from the feedlot – surface water and groundwater – and that they are set distances away. So 20m away from a surface water body or from a main road, or 50m from a residential property."

Aerial inspections are part of the Hawke's Bay Regional Council's regime.

Some farms have been accused of avoiding the consent process by rotating stock from one muddy paddock to another.

But new regulations from central government should tighten intensive winter feeding practices, due to limits on factors such as hoof damage to soil, slopes no greater than 10 degrees and replanting requirements.

Zaman said the new National Environmental Standards for Freshwater regulations, which come into effect May next year, could trigger hundreds of new resource consent applications from Hawke's Bay farms that don't meet the new regulations when taking extra food to cattle.

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