Added compliance on farmers bemoaned

Nicole Mathewson Reporter from The Press

By Brendon McMahon, Local democracy reporter

Frustrations with the cost of freshwater farm plans, rolling out from next month, have been aired at the West Coast Regional Council.

Council staff reporting to the Resource Management Committee meeting, on July 13, noted the pending freshwater farm plans from August.

As part of that an independent farm plan coordinator position for the region, funded by the Ministry for Primary Industries, had started.

According to a council science and planning staff report the plans will need to include:

* farm maps identifying features such as waterways, discharge of contaminant areas, and other risks to freshwater and freshwater ecosystems;
* A risk assessment across farming and growing activities such as irrigation, application of nutrients and effluent, winter grazing, stockholding (standoff) areas, stock exclusion, offal pits and farm rubbish pits;
* A schedule of actions to manage identified features and to address identified risks.

The plans will also need to be certified by a freshwater farm plan certifier appointed by the regional council, audited by a freshwater farm plan auditor, and enforced by the council.

Science and planning manager Fiona Thomson said the co-ordinator position was to provide support, education and advice to farmers on developing their farm plans -- with council staff to contribute to that.

Councillor Frank Dooley asked who was actually employing the co-ordinator and how accessible would they actually be to farmers.

Thomson said the position was "fully funded" by MPI and employed by them as an independent person, co-ordinating for the farmers.

Meantime a focus group had been pulled together including key stakeholders in the region such as Westland Milk Products.

The new co-ordinator, Lyn Carmichael, would be able to "direct people to the resource" in order for them to formulate their owner freshwater farm plan.

"At the moment we don't have anyone certified to do the farm plans or to be auditors."

Dooley noted a point made already by fellow councilor Andy Campbell, a South Westland dairy farmer, about escalating costs on the farming economy.

"We can't just keep loading up farmers with cost," Dooley said.

"Farmers are so darn important to the Coast. It's no use pointing out where you can get a consultant from Timbuktu ... these funds should filter down to the farmer.

"It's always the way, up all the consultants...we've got a world full of consultants. This country must be over run by consultants," Dooley said.

Thomson said the council also had some funding for the process to assist farmers as they formulated individual plans "they can write themselves".

However it was the end result that would require the tick-off.

Thomson said the idea was to build plan templates to "upskill to make it obvious what they should do".

Another aspect was accounting for the cultural perspective on water for Mana Whenua.

Campbell said the point was to ensure the whole process was not made "too complicated or hard".

Thomson admitted there was "a lot involved".

"Quite a lot has to happen behind the scenes before it regurgitates out and say, 'this is our farm plan'," she said.

*Public Interest Journalism funded through NZ On Air