The reports are compiled in a three-year cycle and this year the theme chosen for the Land domain was land use intensification. The next report, due in October, will tackle statistics on air.
The data allows the Government and all decision makers to monitor changes in land use and activity in primary industries and help with decision-making.
The report shows almost half of New Zealand's total land area is used for agriculture and horticulture. Each land use places various pressures on the land and on receiving environments such as waterways.
Māori agricultural and horticultural land use is expanding through the aggregation of smaller land parcels to form larger farms for primary production as well as the formation of farming collectives from multiple farms. To balance kaitiaki responsibilities, Māori are determined to link cultural values with commercial objectives to maintain and extend Māori community and environmental wellbeing.
Our Land 2021 indicators are available on the Stats NZ website and features interactive graphs and tables to make the data easier to digest. Google searches on the various topics in the document will also yield links to each relevant section. The Our Land 2021 report is also available at MFE's website.
The findings are presented with an overview in each section to highlight the key points of interest and drop-down filters allow users to drill down to the areas they are most interested in.
The reporting has found that the total number of farms and the land area they have traditionally occupied has decreased everywhere in New Zealand.
In 2017 there were 4143 farms on 724,564ha in Northland. The most recent count, in 2019, shows there are now 3960 farms on 706,668ha.
Some areas, such as Canterbury and Southland, have been responsible for a massive increase in dairy cattle numbers, indicating an increase in land-use intensity. Dairy cattle numbers increased by 82 per cent nationally from 3.4 million to 6.3 million between 1990 and 2019.
In Northland, dairy cattle numbers had a more modest gain, from 356,561 to 379,401, a 6.4 per cent gain between 1994 and 2017.
The urban spread is real.
Statistics show urban land cover, where most of the population lives, expanded by 14.6 per cent or 30,264ha between 1996 and 2018 over the whole country.
In Northland, mostly high producing exotic grassland was transformed into urban settlements but there was a noticeable slowing down of urban expansion over the last two reporting periods, statisticians have noted.
Horticulture is also growing in the region, with a 7.6 per cent increase in land being used for these industries between 2002 and 2019, with most of that change in recent years.
Between 2002 and 2019, 240,118ha was used for farming beef cattle compared with 310,688ha in 2002, making a 22 per cent drop; 166,101ha was used for dairying compared with 126,277ha in 2002 showing a 31.5 per cent gain and sheep farming land had dropped from 49,121ha to 30,544ha, representing a 37 per cent drop.
Land used for forestry had also dropped 18.5 per cent in the region in that time, from 168,446ha to 137,155ha.
In another measure, exotic land cover statistics show Northland had a 3.6 per cent or 335ha increase in cropping and horticulture, the second highest increase in the country between 2012 and 2018, after Marlborough.
The next update for these statistics is scheduled for April 2024.
