Farmers 'get it on' with Greater Wellington and improve dairy farm compliance

The logic behind regional councils and farmers working together has been vindicated this season with a spectacular improvement in dairy farm compliance in Greater Wellington.

“By getting it on with Greater Wellington Regional Council, farmers have lifted their full compliance to almost three-quarters of all dairy farms in the region (73 percent). This is a major improvement over last season, when just over a half of farms were fully compliant (53 percent),” says Graeme Stuart, Federated Farmers Wairarapa provincial dairy chairperson

“Together with the regional council we’ve tackled non-compliance cutting that by more than a half this season to 13 percent. Given last season it stood at 28 percent this is a significant turn around.

“The difference between full and non compliance numbers are breaches you can best describe as being of an administrative nature.

“Given Greater Wellington Regional Council now monitors all farms on an annual basis, this result comes off the back of much greater scrutiny. The region’s dairy farmers have been put under the microscope so this result is more than pleasing.

“It shows how the region’s dairy farmers are working with the council to identify and improve management practices but we’re not celebrating just yet.

“Federated Farmers wishes to set targets that will see farmers beat the averages reported for other consent holders.

“While we’re not far off and the trend line is in the right direction, we know we can do a lot better especially in terms of stock access to waterways – that’s a big priority area for us.

“We’re optimistic we can get there because the goodwill of farmers is being matched by a regional council that views us as part of the solution and not the problem.

“This isn’t a good farming story it’s a very good farming story. It shows how a cooperative and not adversarial approach gets results,” Mr Stuart concluded.