Waimate District Council Uniting Urban and Rural Communities for the Environment

A harvest in Waimate District.

The Waimate District Council, which governs a rural area of New Zealand’s South Island, works with the national government and local communities to promote productive agriculture while protecting water quality and the environment. In this interview, Waimate District Mayor Craig Rowley tells us about the improvements in irrigation efficiency that have been achieved in past years and about how the district intends to address the challenges of the future.

Irrigation Leader: Please tell us about your background and how you came to be in your current position.

Craig Rowley: When I left school, I went overseas, then came back and went into the New Zealand Police. In 2010, after I had served in the police for 20 years, someone suggested that I should serve in the district council. I thought it was time to give back to the community, so I stood for council and was elected. I was a councilor for a 3‑year period, and when the mayor retired, I put my name in the hat and was elected as mayor in 2013. I’ve been here ever since. This is my third 3‑year term as mayor. Irrigation Leader: Please tell us about Waimate District.

Craig Rowley: The Waimate District is in South Canterbury, on the East Coast of the South Island. It is approximately 3.5 million square kilometers (1.35 million square miles) in size and has about 8,000 residents. Because we have a large land area for our population size, we have a large roading network: We have about 750 kilometers (466 miles) of sealed roads and about the same distance of unsealed roads. Spreading the cost of the maintenance of the roading system across a small rate base poses some challenges.

In terms of major industries, the district has two large dairy milk processing factories. One is run by Fonterra, a national farmer‑owned cooperative. Fonterra is one of the largest cooperatives in the world and one of the largest exporters of milk worldwide. We also have Oceania Dairy, a Chinese‑owned and operated dairy factory. It specializes in ultra‑heat‑treated milk products, particularly infant formula. Both factories are on the state highway. Oceania collects milk from a range of approximately 70 kilometers (43.5 miles) from the factory; it has a tight operation.

Sheep in Waimate District.

Fonterra has several plants around South Canterbury; one of them is for shifting and swapping products around. We’re an agricultural area, and the township of Waimate is an agricultural support town. There’s no real heavy industry within the district. We get some local, New‑Zealand‑based tourism, but we don’t attract many visitors from overseas.

Irrigation Leader: What percentage of the residents are directly involved in agriculture?

Craig Rowley: During the COVID‑19 lockdown, we had the highest percentage of essential workers in the country. Seventy‑six percent of our workforce was still employed as normal. That is directly related to the fact that we’re an agricultural region. We have two freezing works, or meat processing plants. A reasonable portion of the workforce living here in the Waimate District were named essential workers as well. Around 75 percent of the residents are connected to an agricultural business, whether it’s dairy farming, beef and sheep, or the support businesses that go along with them.

Irrigation Leader: Would you discuss the history of irrigation in Waimate and the recent development of new schemes?

Craig Rowley: Traditionally, Waimate was a dryland farming area. It was a big crop‑growing area, particularly for wheat; barley; and seed crops for oil production, such as rapeseed. In the mid‑1990s, we saw quite a shift in land use. A lot of people from Waikato District on the North Island, which was traditionally a farming area, were coming to Waimate. They were able to buy a much larger land area here for less money than what they were paying in the Waikato. A lot of businesses in the district swapped over from beef and sheep farming and cropping to dairy farming. Morven Glenavy Ikawai Irrigation Company has had an irrigation scheme running since the early 1960s, and it assisted in the conversions in the southern part of the district. Water was used to irrigate land for dairy farming that had traditionally been used for beef, sheep, and cropping. That continued through the 1990s.

Border diking, the previous irrigation method, was deemed to be fairly inefficient, so motor scrapers were used to remove the water dikes, and all the paddocks were laser leveled. Now, we get a better and more even flow of water across the paddocks. That made the use of water highly efficient. We saw a big uptake of K‑line irrigation, which involves a series of pods connected to a long alkathene hose that gets towed around the paddock. It can be used to irrigate small areas that are hard to get to and relatively steep country. The uptake of K‑line irrigation allowed land that couldn’t be irrigated by border diking to be brought into production. The next phase was the introduction of spray irrigation, which allowed an even more efficient use of water. It reduced the nitrogen

runoff that was caused by border‑dike irrigation. Spray irrigation required less nitrogen. Today, border‑dike irrigation in the district has all been replaced with spray irrigation.

Now, a lot of farmers are starting to use fixed‑grid irrigation, in which the paddocks are broken up into a grid with fixed spray irrigators on posts at certain points. Those irrigators can be operated via cell phone and computer. Each grid section has its own moisture and temperature sensors. Farmers can put exactly the required amount of water on a relatively small area. They don’t have to employ two labor units to shift a K‑line. Fixed‑grid irrigation systems can be turned on and off from home, and farmers can also remotely adjust the amount of water that is put on certain areas. Our farmers are always working toward better efficiency and cost savings. The spray irrigators are not cheap to run—they can cost up to several thousand dollars a day to run on big farms—so the fixed‑grid systems are considerably more cost efficient. Craig Rowley: The primary use of irrigation is for growing grass for dairy cows. It can also be used for other crops, particularly seed crops and crops that need to be harvested on a strict timeline. There is an opportunity to grow more high‑value crops. We’re seeing a lot of rapeseed produced for use in oil, margarine, and other food products.

Irrigation Leader: What are some of the main concerns relating to water in the district?

Lake Aviemore on the Waitaki River, formed by Aviemore Dam.

Irrigation Leader: Have any new schemes been developed recently?

Craig Rowley: Yes. The newest is the Morven‑Glenavy scheme. In partnership with a group of farmers in the Waihao Downs area, it put in an irrigation area of about 10,000 hectares (24,710 acres). That has been up and running for 4 years now. An irrigation pipeline was extended off the Morven‑Glenavy scheme close to the Waimate township itself. Irrigation water has also been bought closer to the township itself. A proposal was made a few years ago to irrigate approximately 20,000 hectares (49,421 acres) in the northern part of the district. That fell through at the time because of a big drop in the price of milk products that made it uneconomical. The idea could be reactivated in the future. Craig Rowley: Water is the lifeblood of the district. Without it, we would be in a different position than we are now. There’s a lot of pressure nationally and locally around nitrate levels and the improvement of the quality of the water in our streams and rivers. One of our challenges moving forward is to figure out how to maintain production without damaging the environment. The government has set nitrogen targets that farmers are not allowed to exceed, posing some challenges for practices and stocking numbers. The farmers, the agricultural industry bodies, and the district council are working together to make sure we’re not damaging the environment with intensive farming.

Irrigation Leader: What specific obligations are farmers under to ensure they’re working in an environmentally friendly manner?

Craig Rowley: Canterbury is doing well, as we’ve been tackling the water quality issue for a while. The Canterbury Mayoral Forum, which includes all the mayors of the Canterbury District, started up something called the Canterbury Water Management Strategy. Working alongside our regional council and Environment Canterbury, we’re working together to protect the environment against high‑polluting intensive farming. There’s a set of regional and local plans that limit the amount of nitrogen farmers can use and the runoff from their properties. That was recently brought up by the government in a national policy statement on freshwater. We’re working with the farmers to ensure that they meet those obligations. There will be some challenges around stock levels: Some farms need to lower stocking numbers to meet the nitrogen loading parameters. We commissioned some independent and expert research on the implications of the national policy statement for the district. We’re meeting with industry farmers about the effects this policy will have on farming businesses and what we can do to help. The farmers have

what are called good management plans. Every farm must have a management plan that makes sure it’s running as cleanly and efficiently as possible. Even the dairy companies are asking for sustainable farming, so dairy farmers get audited by the two dairy companies to ensure they are operating in an environmentally friendly way.

Irrigation Leader: Is there a good understanding between the farmers and urban dwellers in the Waimate District and on a national level?

Craig Rowley: The relationship is fairly good in our district, because the urban population is intrinsically linked with agriculture. There is a good understanding between the two ends of the spectrum. I couldn’t say that’s the case nationally. I think there’s a vacuum of information in some of the major cities about how food is produced and where it comes from.

Irrigation Leader: Would you talk a bit about the Three Waters Reform Programme and what it would entail, particularly for irrigated agriculture in your district?

Craig Rowley: Our central government is trying to introduce the Three Waters Reform Programme. This involves aggregating the 67 local authorities that currently supply and deliver drinking water to residents into four entities that cover the whole country. There are a lot of challenges with what the government is proposing, particularly around local voice and governance. Rural drinking water is a complex subject. We have six rural drinking water schemes that draw water from shallow intakes on different properties and then deliver it to properties and farms via a large series of elevated pipes and tanks. One of the big issues we have is that about 85 percent of the water we deliver is extra stock drinking water. To improve the water quality, we are looking at point‑of‑delivery filtration at houses in rural areas, because it’s not economically viable to raise the quality of the 85 percent of the water that will go down the throats of stock.

These reforms are not going to have any implication for irrigation. They deal only with drinking water, storm water, and wastewater. In rural areas, wastewater is not as big an issue because most people are on their own septic tanks and systems. We’re waiting for the government to progress to the next stage. We’ve received a clear message from ratepayers that the model that is currently being proposed is not something they want to be part of. They’re afraid of losing control and influence over decisions made about drinking water. That’s why the Three Waters Reform Programme is up in the air while we’re waiting for the next phase of government to tell us what it is thinking. We and the other councils around the country have given them clear feedback. Out of the 67 councils around the country, only 6 or 7 see any benefit. Craig Rowley: One of the most important issues relates to climate change and how it’s going to affect our strength in the coming years. We’re certainly seeing greater frequency and intensity in weather events. What were once 150‑year rain and flood events seem to be occurring a lot more regularly. That puts stresses on our infrastructure and on the infrastructure of farmers with fencing. We need to build some resilience into our systems and infrastructure so that we can handle those one‑off events better. The government is working hard on an overall strategy to address climate change. We have to follow closely and do what we can. With the warming of the planet, we’re going to see more dry spells and droughts. Those are the situations in which irrigation is absolutely critical. During those dry spells, the free‑draining soils in our area dry out quickly. We’ve got to have water to maintain the production of food with climate change.

Irrigation Leader: What is your message to the regional and national governments?

Craig Rowley: There’s no one‑size‑fits‑all approach. Even though we’re a small country, we have a dispersed population and a lot of small communities. It’s intrinsically difficult to try to link those communities together under a bigger, national model. We must make sure that whatever we do now and in the future in a whole range of areas is a good fit for where the people are living and where our communities are. It is important that we’re all in the same boat. We need to make sure to work together to come up with solutions for the issues we will face over the next 50 years.

Irrigation Leader: What is your vision for the future?

Craig Rowley: My vision for the future is that we have a productive local economy and good local representation and that we see improvements in our water quality and in the way we farm and work. A thriving rural community is essential to the well‑being of the country. We know from our experience of the COVID‑19 pandemic that it was the farming and agricultural sector that kept the country afloat during hard times, so it’s important that all of us, both urban and rural, work together for the common good. IL

Craig Rowley is the mayor of the Waimate District. For more about the Waimate District Council, visit www.waimatedc.govt.nz.