Cow numbers on rise

Canterbury cow numbers are continuing to rise, bucking a stable national trend.

Nationally, Stats NZ has tracked the dairy cattle herd dipping 1 per cent from 6.62 million in June 2016 to 6.53 million a year later. In contrast, Canterbury dairy cattle numbers increased 3 per cent to 1.31 million mid way through last year, based on the 2017 Agricultural Production Census.

Last week Environment Minister David Parker suggested New Zealand might have to accept fewer cows to curb environmental concerns and the increase comes on the back of a Greenpeace campaign to stop dairy conversions.

While there would not be a direct cap on the number of cattle, there may be limits on the amount of nutrients lost from a farm into a waterway, said Parker.

Parker said cow numbers had already peaked and were going down and in some areas, the number of cows per hectare was higher than the environment could sustain.

‘‘That won’t be done through a raw cap on cow numbers; it will be done on nutrient limits, the amount of nutrient that can be lost from a farm to a waterway, because it’s not just a dairy cow issue.’’

There had been no analysis yet on the impact of this on particularly dairying regions.

An alternative for regions such as South Canterbury lay in land use change towards more cropping and horticulture, which were high-value land uses, Parker said.

Agricultural production statistics manager Stuart Pitts said the national dairy cattle herd had stabilised since 2012, but Canterbury numbers had risen 9 per cent during the same period. The total amount of land irrigated for farming was increasing, with 747,000 hectares of farmland irrigated in 2017, up 7 per cent from 700,000ha in 2014.

Canterbury had the most irrigated land, accounting for 478,000ha last year up 12 per cent from 429,000ha in 2014.

‘‘Since 2014, an extra 49,000ha of Canterbury land has been irrigated – the equivalent of around 49,000 more rugby fields,’’ Pitts said.

‘‘Over the same period, Canterbury has seen a large drop in arable farming, particularly of the grains grown for stock feed. ‘‘The amount of wheat and barley harvested in Canterbury dropped 19 per cent [14,000ha] from 2016 to 2017.

Beef cattle numbers were rising after a decade of decline. Beef cattle increased 2 per cent from 3.53 million in 2016 to 3.62 million in 2017. The national sheep flock showed little change between 2016 and 2017, easing from 27.58 million to 27.53 million.

Kiwifruit orchards were recovering from the hit they took during the PSA disease outbreak in 2010. The total canopy area of kiwifruit rose 7 per cent from 11,000ha in 2014 to 11,700ha in 2017. More than 52,000 farmers provided information for the 2017 Agricultural Pro- duction Census, which Stats NZ and the Ministry for Primary Industries carry out every five years.

In response to Greenpeace’s campaign aimed at stopping dairy conversions Environment Canterbury (Ecan) pointed to rule changes enforcing the environment and limits farmers must follow on nutrient limits.

Ecan chief executive Bill Bayfield said region-wide rules in place for some time were having an impact. ‘‘While the regional council doesn’t have jurisdiction to impose a ceiling on cow numbers, we have been able to put in place strict limits on the nutrient losses that farmers must work within. The limits we imposed in 2012 have been working.’’