Federated Farmers: Water is a dairy farmers' perspective

VITAL RESOURCE: Water and access to it is vital to farmers while irrigation schemes and water storage are an important infrastructure for New Zealand.

Despite popular misconceptions, good quality water is essential for dairy farming. Our cows need around 70 litres a day to drink and we're allowed another 70 litres per cow per day to keep our cowsheds clean and to properly cool that milk.

Whilst modern technology may reduce those levels somewhat, that basic need will still remain. For many regions, use of water for irrigation is important and creating new opportunities for irrigation, you would have to think, is as mart thing.

Many of us have waterways going through our farms, and not only do they provide aesthetic value to the farm they also provide recreational values to our families and the wider community.

Dairy farming does impact on water quality, with the nitrogen leaching from the soil profile being higher on ad airy farm than on the average sheep and beef operation.

While we aim to minimise this loss, the reality is it will never be eliminated. The National Policy Statement on Freshwater and the accompanying National Objectives Framework sets the minimum standards for waterways nationwide.

It allows for communities to decide on what qualities they wish for their water bodies, with the exception that water quality can't depreciate further from where it is now. It also sets timeframes for implementing the changes agreed upon.

There is also an irrigation development fund, which is essentially a loan scheme to set up irrigation projects, and Government assistance to set these schemes up.

In the upcoming General Election a number of political parties will have policies around water quality.

When you weigh up these policies it would be polite to say there are some differing views.
Given that these policies may affect your farming ability what do you need to consider when casting your vote?

With the irrigation assistance, I hear a lot of political noise about scrapping it as it is subsidising farming supposedly.

We also hear talk of resource rentals for water used for irrigation or charges for that water. The point I would make is, irrigation schemes and water storage are important infrastructure for New Zealand.

The farmers who directly benefit from these schemes will have to repay the Government for their investment. So for those political parties that want to scrap this fund, the questions you should ask of them is why irrigation should be treated differently to other infrastructure such as transport, communication linkages, or electricity.

For those proposed charges for irrigation I would ask what are those charges for?

Is it for monitoring the rivers? Because in Manawatu the council already does that and is charging us for the cost of a monitoring programme already.

Moreover, is this policy being fairly applied to all? Are electricity generation, industrial use and urban water schemes being charged the same?.

Or are dairy farmers just an easy target? The same situation applies with water quality. I hear talk of charges on farmers for discharges and, again, we need to ask what the rationale for any government charges would be.

Where would the revenue from these charges be spent? In my province? Horizons' Regional Council already has charges based on discharge consents, which are used to cover the cost of its monitoring and water quality programme.

As I've shown, you need to find out, what the Government charges would be spent on and ask if they are to be applied evenly. Would urban and industry be paying the same as farmers, or are we the fall guys?

Another thing to consider with water quality is how much each political party is willing to let each community freely decide how it sets the standards it wants for its waterways.

Some parties talk about setting higher minimum standards, but the questions you should be asking is will these minimum standards be applied to all stretches of waterways?

Will the same pristine standard they could set for the river at the bottom of my farm, also apply to the Avon in the middle of Christchurch?

This is our grievance really; we just want rules that are fair to everyone. Above all, we would like to see and hear about the level of input that local communities get.

Surely, the people most affected by any policy should be the ones with the most input into. Water is an important issue for dairy farmers.