A stubborn minority of Waikato dairy farmers are refusing to make efforts to change their farming practices to become fully compliant around effluent management.
Of the 789 farms inspected by the Waikato Regional Council for the 2021-22 season, 54, or 7%, were significantly non-compliant.
That percentage is unchanged from the previous season, Waikato Regional Council regional compliance manager Patrick Lynch said.
Many of these farms would have had previous visits from council inspectors, he said.
However, full compliance rates had lifted from 37% to 49%, with 379 farms being fully compliant.
“We’re finding the bad stuff at the same rate. However, at the other end of the spectrum, there are more people improving,” Lynch said.
Those fully compliant farmers know the rules and are following them. But at the bottom end, a minority of farmers are resistant to change, he said.
“It feels like for us, that when we find the bad stuff, these are people who simply don’t want to change.
“They have had all of the warnings and guidance from their own industry – supply companies, DairyNZ, the wider community and us as the regulator and yet there is this realm of around that 7% and we’re having to engage with them one at a time and use our harsher regulatory tools to get them to change.”
Though 7% may seem like a small component of the industry, the scale of the dairy industry in the Waikato means there are as many as 300 dairy farms with inadequate infrastructure, posing a threat to the environment, he said.
“The good farmers are doing the right thing and there are more people trending towards doing the right thing, but the real issue is what appears to be this core of poor performers who are absolutely resistant to change.”
There were 117 enforcement actions resulting from those inspections including 35 abatement notices, 12 infringement notices and 69 formal warnings.
The remaining 356 farms had degrees of non-compliance that sat between the two ends of the spectrum.
Being fully compliant came down to having proper infrastructure and that infrastructure being properly managed.
Those 356 farms had issues relating to those factors, he said.
“They may have the infrastructure but have let themselves down with the management, or the infrastructure is not quite there yet,” he said.
The number of farmers being taken to court has fallen over the past 12 months as the judicial system struggles to cope with delays due to covid-19. It has resulted in delays in trials, he said.
In one case, the council initiated court proceedings against a recidivist farmer 18 months ago. The case is set to be heard only in February 2024, he said.
“All of the court cases have really slowed down. That’s not a criticism of the court, but a reflection of how challenged they are.”
