Land Champions
FARMERS WEEKLY – farmersweekly.co.nz – December 14, 2020
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Driving force behind water quality group The Pomahaka Water Care Group is proof landowners can and will lead changes to improve water quality. Neal Wallace speaks to Lloyd McCall who has been one of the driving forces behind the group seeking to improve water quality in the catchment of the Otago river. LLOYD McCall’s lightbulb moment was initially marked by horror, but quickly changed to defiance and determination to fix it. The West Otago dairy farm, of which McCall is an equity partner with his son and daughter in-law, fronts the Pomahaka River for about 5km, but two tributaries, the Heriot Burn and Crookston Burn, flow through the 320ha property. It was 2013 and the Otago Regional Council was meeting with groups of farmers to discuss issues such as water quality, and they presented data to show the impact farms were having on waterways. It was not good news for McCall. “They had tested the tributaries where they meet the Pomahaka after it had flowed through our farm. It was not good. I just stared at the graph for a few minutes,” McCall said. “That was my lightbulb moment and I told the group the only people who are going to fix this are farmers and landowners.” His philosophy is that issues such as water quality have to be driven from the bottom up not the top down. The water quality results for McCall’s farm came as an added shock because he has reduced use of synthetic fertilisers to strategic only applications, to focus on managing the soil biology and pasture health. “My ethos and that of Adam and Georgie (son and daughter-inlaw), is to never advance myself ahead of land, man or cows,” he said. “We’ll always have well-fed cows, staff that are well looked after and always strive to maintain the land and have a low environmental footprint.” Soon after seeing the water data, McCall and five other farmers met and came up with a plan which, unbeknown to them at the time, would be the foundation of the Pomahaka Water Care Group. Later, Janet Gregory, formerly of NZ Landcare Trust, would help with its establishment. The foundation group committed to testing water at three spots on the main tributaries and waterways that run through their properties, to encourage farmers to learn about their waterways and to test discharges. The aim is to encourage farmers to take ownership.
“Only farmers know those test results and where they come from, but it gives them ownership and they start to learn about their land and interaction with waterways,” he said. Other commitments were to promote best farming practice, publicise their activity, promote land plans and charge an annual subscription of $250. The financial commitment was important. “It gives ownership,” he said. “This is all about ground-up farmers who want to improve waterways rather than farmers who must meet a rule.” Momentum built quickly with 80 attending a public meeting that launched the group. More than that, McCall says there was a genuine desire to ensure future generations could enjoy the river as the current generation had. “People were only told the river was dirty but they were still swimming in it. They couldn’t relate,” he said. That difficulty in relating to declining water quality meant solutions had to be driven from the ground up and not by regulation. “It’s not about rules or regulatory authorities, it’s about landowners wanting to care for the river so future generations can enjoy it as we have,” he said. McCall, who had stepped back from daily management of the farm to focus on his accounting and management business, found himself leading the Pomahaka Water Care Group, a role he has been doing ever since. The 80km long Pomahaka River starts in the Old Man Range above Roxburgh and covers a 2020 square kilometre catchment. It is bordered by about 440 farm businesses of 100ha or more. Of those, 102 are dairy farmers, 180 sheep, 124 mixed sheep and beef and 35 others, including forestry. Some holders own multiple farms. In 2016 the water care group became an incorporated society and subsequently has the support of the Otago Regional Council, Sustainable Food and Fibre Futures, Ernslaw One and 170 landowning members. McCall says the group is intentionally blunt and confronting when needed, publicly highlighting in community rural newspapers
DOING THE WORK: Improving water quality. Lloyd McCall of the Pomahaka Water Care Group in Otago.
If they do it for themselves, the community and the future, they’ll go way beyond those regulations. Lloyd McCall Pomahaka Water Care Group what is unacceptable farm management. Equally, it promotes and explains desired farm management practices such as intensive winter grazing or applying effluent. Signs on roads around the region promote the group, its activities and serve as a public reminder that farmers are improving water quality. McCall says such is the group’s influence, he believes most West Otago farmers will meet most of the intensive winter grazing provisions of the Essential Freshwater Policy, excluding the resowing date, pugging and slope provisions. If there are reports of farmers doing activities deemed environmentally unacceptable, a group known as the Best Practice Response Team will have a quiet word with the offender and offer advice. He says the team was an idea they considered for some time before implementing, worried at how it will be received. “We came up with the idea, then sat on it for a while and then
decided to implement it,” he said. “We’ve had some massive gains from it and often find the farmer doesn’t know the issue raised was happening.” The water care group is also involved in research and demonstrating to members steps or solutions that can be taken, such as building wetlands. McCall says he had a second lightbulb moment with data showing the impact on water quality of a wetland they constructed. Water leaving the wetland had up to 90% of E. coli killed and a 60% reduction in nitrogen compared to where the water entered. It is work they are continuing and have just secured Jobs for Nature funding of $176,000 for the construction of an 11ha wetland on private land between Waipahi and Clydevale. The funding will pay for fencing, the planting and maintaining of 21,000 plants and the construction of a boardwalk. The group is also overseeing 100km of riparian planting in the Pomahaka catchment with funding from the Provincial Growth Fund and the One Billion Trees programme. McCall says farmer efforts have successfully improved water quality, but just as importantly testing highlights areas requiring attention due to a lapse in management or a one off event. Phosphate, nitrogen and E. coli levels are improving overall, but there is an issue with riverbank erosion because landowners are no longer able to manage the build-up of gravel which causes erosion and the release of nutrients.
Testing has also revealed that phosphate levels peak in some areas prior to Christmas, coinciding with sheep farmers applying fertiliser, but then a heavy rain event can wash that phosphate into waterways. It also reveals some anomalies, such as the role ducks and waterfowl have in spreading E. coli in water and high nitrogen levels when leaving areas of native forest. McCall says improving water quality in the catchment is a symptom of landowners being made aware of issues and then addressing them. “You can’t buy water quality and you can’t regulate water quality,” he said. “Water quality has to come from within the people.” Minimum standards still have to be enforced to bring everyone up to acceptable levels, but McCall says when encouraged, human nature is to exceed those limits. “If we go down a regulatory system, the regulation is as far as farmers go,” he said. “If they do it for themselves, the community and the future, they’ll go way beyond those regulations.” The West Otago community is also benefiting from the Pomahaka Water Care Group’s activities. A community-run nursery has been established, which grows 15,000 plants a year for riparian plantings. A portion of proceeds from plant sales are gifted back to the community and has so far raised $40,000 for a cover for the Tapanui Community Pool, with funds now being raised for the West Otago Health Trust.
