Farming protests under scrutiny

TALKING POLITICS

Opinion: Besides the fabled split between town and country, divisions appear to exist within farming as well.

Some farmers do acknowledge that the rural sector continues to be responsible for a large share of the nation’s harmful climate change emissions and for the ongoing degradation of our rivers, lakes, and streams.

Yet as we saw in the nationwide farming protests last week, other farmers are demanding that any change to their farming practices must be made pain free, and entirely cost free, for them.

Obviously, not all farmers are wealthy. Yet the claim that they cannot afford to comply with say, the proposed freshwater regulations seems puzzling.

In October, dairy farmers are forecast to receive a record, multi-billion dollar payout. Not surprisingly, Rabobank’s latest surveys have revealed rising levels of farmer confidence. A whopping 82 per cent of farmers feel optimistic that their prospects will either improve or remain in the current sweet spot for the next 12 months.

Dairy prices are stellar. Late last month, Rabobank CEO Todd Charteris reported that the outlook for beef pricing had also improved, and that sheep meat exports were expected to remain firm over coming months.

In other words, affordability shouldn’t be a problem. Farmers are being asked to do very little, very slowly, about climate change, water degradation and the lax nitrate levels (by global standards) that New Zealand tolerates.

Many urban Kiwis would gladly embrace the alleged plight of the farming sector, given how the recent headlines have been all about how healthy the economic outlook is for dairy farmers.

The government now faces a dilemma.

If it caves in to the footdragging minority, it risks betraying the innovative farmers who support the need for change.

Last year for instance, the Groundswell NZ lobby group staged a tractor protest in Gore against the new regulations aimed at limiting the environmental damage from intensive winter grazing.

Yet since then, the vast majority of Southland farmers have reportedly embraced the regulations, apparently because they see the need for them.

Even so, the government appears inclined to buckle. Recently, the Environment Ministry issued discussion papers in which it proposes to ease its freshwater regulations – which had been developed in tandem with the farming sector – and would consider imposing less stringent requirements on farmers to fence stock off from waterways.

Such a backdown would seem premature. New Zealanders have watched on with dismay as dairy farming has polluted the nation’s once pristine (and no longer swimmable) rivers, lakes and streams.

An Environment Ministry report found that 95-99 per cent of rivers by length in urban, pastoral, and exotic forests exceed water quality guidelines.

In addition, there has been mounting evidence that the nitrate levels in drinking water (largely generated by the fertilisers used in farming) pose a serious health risk of premature births, even after pregnant women have been only briefly exposed to risk.

No doubt working on the land can be a hard and lonely job and the weather can be a bitch. . . Yet surely, urban taxpayers cannot be expected to pick up the tab to fix environmental problems that dairy farmers have played a significant role in creating, but which many are currently refusing to acknowledge.