Last month the Primary Sector Water Partnership met at the Federated Farmers headquarters in Wellington. At the meeting were representatives of all the major sector organisations - Meat and Wool, Fonterra, Dairy NZ, the Foundation for Arable Research, Horticulture NZ, the Forest Owners Association, FertResearch, Irrigation NZ and Federated Farmers.
The partnership was formed in 2008 with a clear goal: to work together to ensure the sustainable use of freshwater resources across the primary sector. With over half of the New Zealand land area in farming, around 15 million hectares, the scale of the task is substantial.
The Primary Sector Water Partnership has broken the task down to sector, catchment and pan-sector initiative levels. At the first level, each member has committed to improving the efficiency of water use and nutrient use within their particular sphere of influence and expertise. In the last year, for example, FertResearch invested $500,000 in the development of the Overseer nutrient budget model and over $1 million in evaluating the performance of nitrogen inhibitors. Closer to home, Wairarapa hosted an irrigation workshop, part of the Irrigation NZ commitment to rolling out farmer toolkits to improve the efficiency of water use.
The second level of action is the catchment. The Primary Sector Water Partnership seeks to work with national and regional government to identify priority catchments, and to apply co-ordinated resources to support landowners in identifying ways to improve water quality. In other regions, such as the Upper Waikato, partnership members are supporting integrated catchment management programmes: here in Wairarapa, proposals are mooted for a similar project in Mangaterere.
As a collective body, the third sphere of action is pan-sectoral initiatives. One area which cuts across sector boundaries is the concept of "audited self management" (ASM). Each partnership member has varying experience and perspectives on what ASM is and what it can deliver for farmers, for markets or regulators. At the meeting in Wellington, this was agreed as a priority area and a Primary Sector Water Partnership workshop specifically on ASM will convene next week to follow through on this.
