11 Feds on new tenancy rules Vol 19 No 6, February 15, 2021
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Plans can add value for farmers Colin Williscroft
T
colin.williscroft@globalhq.co.nz
HE need for farm environment plans (FEPs) is generally accepted by the rural community but uncertainty over their implementation is fueling unease. A panel discussion at the end of a one-day Farmed Landscapes Research Centre webinar in Palmerston North last week looked at building New Zealand’s capability to achieve FEPs, and whether there is value in a coordinated national approach to them. Beef + Lamb NZ (B+LNZ) environmental policy manager Corina Jordan says it is important that FEPs are viewed as more than just a piece of paper that farmers need to deliver. Plans are about a process that has a farmer at the centre, so they can help deliver practice change on the ground. While cognisant of the need to keep regulatory costs down, she says plans need to be viewed as more than that. She says farm plans should add value to businesses, showing how to unlock opportunities. They can also be passed on when a property is sold.
“They are a value-add,” she said. Jordan says the first challenge of implementing new requirements is convincing the majority of those affected of the need for them to be adopted and in terms of FEPs, the rural sector is now largely over that. What’s needed now is consistency in areas, including the level of requirements and a framework to get there. Too much uncertainty is disempowering and to help overcome that there is a need to align national, regional and sector approaches. She says one of the first rules of creating policy is that it should be implementable and a real challenge facing the Government at present is to look and see whether there are aspects to its current freshwater policy that are not implementable. However, she says FEPs are here to stay and the majority of farmers understand that, not only for the environment but because markets will demand it. But they can’t just be a piece of paper, they have to be able to be made to work. “There is a moral responsibility that we can actually land it,” she said. Whether or not that involves a national process, she says what’s
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ALL SMILES: AgProud volunteers packing fruit outside Silver Fern Farms Finegand works, from left, Mark Paterson, Carol Sutherland, Hamish Bielski, Alison Ludemann and Graham Hunter. Photo: Natwick
AgProud’s sweet gesture of thanks Neal Wallace neal.wallace@globalhq.co.nz SOME fruit was picked in Central Otago in the past two weeks, then it was given away to about 5000 people. While that in itself may not sound spectacular, the free fruit is a gesture organised by the AgProud rural community group to thank meat and dairy processors for working during the covid-19 pandemic lockdown. Last week more than 30 farmers, meat and dairy workers on their day off, and
Ballance staff descended on an Earnscleugh orchard and picked about eight tonnes of fruit. It was then given away to staff at the Finegand, Lorneville and Prime Range meat works and the Edendale and Open Country Dairy processing plants. AgProud spokesperson Jon Pemberton says this was the second consignment of fruit given to primary sector process workers in South Otago and Southland, and there is one more pick planned for Wednesday. The gesture recognised that workers risked infection
and difficult work conditions by having to adhere to social distancing and other restrictions to ensure milk and meat was processed for farmers. Pemberton says one of AgProud’s purposes is to link urban and rural communities, and most staff who work in dairy factories and meat plants are from urban centres. He hopes to get about 60 people picking fruit this week to be given to the remaining processing plants, truck drivers and others in the community who stepped up during lockdown.
