Much-needed changes to unworkable and expensive regulations mark the end of the war on farming, Federated Farmers say.
The Government has announced it will be making urgent changes to the resource management system, with a Bill expected to be introduced to Parliament next month. Federated Farmers freshwater spokesperson Colin Hurst says farmers will be pleased to see the back of impractical winter grazing and stock exclusion rules introduced by the previous Government.
“These rules have been a complete nightmare since the day they were introduced,” Hurst says.
“They were rushed through before the 2020 election by overzealous regulators with a complete disregard for those who’d actually need to implement them behind the farm gate.
“Farmers are always looking to improve environmental outcomes on their properties and to care for the land, but regulation needs to be practical, pragmatic and affordable.
“These rules failed on all three counts. They were completely disconnected from the reality of farming, devoid of commonsense, and heaped a tonne of unnecessary costs onto farmers.”
In its April 23 announcement, the Government said the Resource Management Act Amendment Bill will improve resource management laws and give greater certainty to consent applicants.
“The Bill focuses on targeted changes that can take effect quickly and give certainty to councils and consent applicants, while new legislation to replace the RMA is developed,” RMA Reform Minister Chris Bishop said.
Bishop said the Bill will reduce the regulatory burden on resource consent applicants and support development in key sectors, including farming.
One change will mean that, while the Government reviews the National Policy Statement for Freshwater Management, resource consent applicants won’t have to demonstrate their proposed activities follow the Te Mana o te Wai hierarchy of obligations.
The intensive winter grazing regulations will be repealed, stock exclusion regulations will be amended, and the requirement for councils to identify new Significant Natural Areas (SNAs) will be suspended for three years.
Hurst says these farming rules were poorly thought through, as shown by the fact that they had to be amended eight times in three years.
“Even then they remained totally unworkable and confusing for farmers,” he says.
“The constant chopping and changing has been incredibly confusing and has completely undermined farmers’ confidence to invest in their businesses.”
Hurst says the previous Government should have listened when farmers told them a one-size-fits-all approach was never going to work.
“Winter grazing rules would have required more than 10,000 farmers around the country to get a resource consent just to feed a winter crop to their stock.
“Even if farmers had complied, the councils wouldn’t have had capacity to process that number of consents.”
Hurst is also deeply critical of flawed stock exclusion rules which currently require extensive sheep and beef properties to fence their waterways by July 2025.
“Fencing streams on extensive properties with low stocking rates has the potential to cost farmers hundreds of thousands of dollars, for very little environmental gain.
“It makes no sense to have a blanket rule requiring fences on these vast properties with difficult terrain and a very low stocking rate.”
The previous Government had two attempts at mapping out where sheep and beef farmers needed to fence streams, and they still couldn’t get it right, he says.
“Fences don’t go up overnight, so the reality is those farmers couldn’t comply with the current rules by July next year, even if they wanted to.
“Farmers are New Zealand’s leading conservationists. I can’t think of a group of people doing more to protect and enhance our countries biodiversity.
“We need to be empowering farmers and supporting them to make further improvements on their properties instead of tying them up in needless red tape.”
Federated Farmers strongly believe winter grazing, stock exclusion and on-farm biodiversity can be better managed through the upcoming roll-out of farm plans.
“Farm plans allow farmers and rural communities to tailor their environmental improvement actions to match their specific local needs,” Hurst says.
“This will always lead to much better outcomes, and more community buy-in, than impractical and expensive one-size-fits-all rules driven out of Wellington.”
Legislation is expected to be introduced to Parliament in May and passed into law later in this year.
Federated Farmers, New Zealand’s leading independent rural advocacy organisation, has established a news and insights partnership with AgriHQ, the country’s leading rural publisher, to give the farmers of New Zealand a more informed, united and stronger voice. Feds news and commentary appears each week in its own section of the Farmers Weekly print edition and online.
