Dairy farm conversions drying up
DairyNZ senior economist Matt Newman said there were two factors behind the slowed rate of conversions.
It’s official - throughout the country the rate of converting land to dairy farms has dramatically slowed.
In regions overseen by the Horizons Regional Council (Manawatu-Wanganui), Environment Canterbury and Environment Southland, conversions in the last year have almost totally dried up.
These are the regions that saw the most rapid increase in the numbers of dairy cattle, as farmers moved out of traditional sheep and beef farming in order to chase after ‘‘white gold’’.
Figures provided by Horizons and Environment Southland show that over the past five years, conversions hit a high in 2014 as global dairy prices soared.
In the Horizons region, they reached a peak of 24 in 2014, before dropping to 15 in 2015 and by this year they were down to zero.
Dr Nic Peet, Horizons group manager strategy and regulation, said dairy conversions required consent only from 2010 onwards.
In Southland, conversions were at their highest in 2014 with 35 consents granted but this year they had plummeted to only two.
Canterbury’s big growth year was in 2011-12 when 110 new dairy effluent consents were issued; by this year they had dropped to 20.
In the dairy heartland of Waikato, statistics on farm conversions are harder to come by.
A regional council spokesman explained that in many other regions conversions needed a specific resource consent.
‘‘Individual conversions may need a consent for a particular part of their operation, for example earthworks, but not the actual conversion to dairying,’’ he said.
However any new conversions in the Waikato and Waipa Rivers catchments since the Healthy Rivers Plan Change was publicly notified now need a consent, but that has been only recently put in place.
One of the country’s largest conversion projects was the pines to dairy operation on the 26,000-hectare Waira¯ kei Estate north of Taupo.
Taranaki Regional Council director-resource management Fred McLay, said that unlike regions such as Canterbury or Southland, Taranaki had been a long-established dairying region.
‘‘Large-scale dairying began here in the 19th century and only a handful of conversions – either to or from dairying - have taken place in recent years.
‘‘We certainly see no trend either way.’’
DairyNZ senior economist Matt Newman said there were two factors behind the slowed rate of conversions.
‘‘The first is the dairy downturn that has meant that farmers aren’t in a position financially to invest in new farms. The second is an uncertainty in some regions around environmental requirements and regulations and the potential investment required. They are rightly and prudently being cautious with their investments for the future.’’