Farmers worry about 'cow-capping'

Charlie Pedersen

Federated Farmers is concerned that environmental regulations to prevent nitrogen runoff into waterways could result in cutting stock numbers.

That is despite central and local government officials indicating actual numerical caps are not being considered for commercial farms.

Stock effluent is a key source of nitrogen run-off, which affects the health of waterways.

Federation president Charlie Pedersen said he understood the idea of capping cows per hectare in environmentally sensitive areas had been discussed by council staff throughout the country and the Ministry for the Environment.

Pedersen believed much of the thinking on run-off prevention had gone on before the introduction several years ago of nitrogen inhibitors, which hold nitrogen in the soil.

Calling for more research, he said soil science research had been slashed in the 1980s because of doubts about the future strength of agriculture.

"It's never really built up again and we badly, badly need soil scientists again who'll do that sort of science work."

The rural and urban sectors pointing the finger at each other over water contamination was of no help, he said.

"We have to get past that and accept that we're all in it together."

The Environment Ministry's acting manager of environmental policy, Tim Bennetts, said capping stock numbers may have been discussed some years ago. But specifically managing nitrate outputs from farms - as opposed to inputs from stock and other sources - was the way ahead, he said.

"I think we can be a bit cleverer than just a blunt instrument on stock number capping ... I think nutrient capping, as opposed to stock number capping, does provide land owners with a more flexible range of options for achieving water quality goals."

The Government's sustainable water programme of action is studying water management issues.

Regional council Environment Waikato's push to control nitrogen going into Lake Taupo does have stock number capping for owners of lifestyle blocks but not for commercial farmers. Resource information general manager Tony Petch said caps were a simple system for the small operators.

Overall, Environment Waikato's Taupo plan calls for a cap on nitrogen discharges from all "manageable sources", including agriculture. More than 90 per cent of "manageable nitrogen" was estimated to come from stock effluent leaching in the area, with beef and sheep farms, not dairying, being the major source of nitrates. Planned Taupo measures included making more than $80 million available to buy nitrate reductions.

There was also a lot of research going on nationwide on farming techniques, Petch said. "The whole concept here is farming under a cap means different management practices to increase profitability while keeping the same amount of nitrogen or phosphorous leaving the farm."

Environment Canterbury also ruled out direct "cow-capping".

John Penno, executive chairman of Canterbury dairy company Synlait and leader of the Dairy Environment Review Group, did not believe direct stock caps would now ever be introduced for commercial farms. Caps wouldn't necessarily slow down the flow of nitrogen anyway, he said.

Thinking had shifted to setting output caps and providing flexibility as to how they would be achieved.

Pedersen welcomed the idea of nitrogen run-off being measured with farmers able to reduce output in a flexible way rather than face stock capping.

But run-off caps could result in indirect pressures to cut stock, particularly if that appeared to farmers to be the only way of making reductions in the short term.

He also questioned whether any environmental gains would be worth the lost production involved.