Pamu irked over consent
An Auckland-based corporate farmer has come under fire from state-owned Pamu for lodging a non-notified resource consent to convert 1800 hectares of South Waikato land to dairying.
Wairakei Pastoral applied for the land use change consent on November 22 with the Waikato Regional Council to convert the combination of woody vegetation, non-dairy pasture and arable farmland to dairy farming.
The land use change application represents 7 per cent of Wairakei Pastoral’s 25,723ha Wairakei Estate north of Taupo. Since 2004, the company has developed 15,734ha (61 per cent) of the land, mostly for dairy farming.
Pamu, which is the brand name for Landcorp, leases the farms from Wairakei Pastoral. It claimed Wairakei Pastoral was responsible for the consent application and Pamu was not formally consulted on it.
‘‘As an impacted party Pamu believes we should have been notified. Pamu believes the consent [and any others like it] should be publicly notified to ensure all interested parties have an opportunity to be heard on the implications for the environment of the proposals,’’ a spokesman said in a statement. ‘‘Pamu has also notified the council that, in event the application is not publicly notified, Pamu believes it is an affected party and should be consulted with on the application.’’
Chief executive Steve Carden was unavailable for comment, but was understood to be angry at being blindsided by the application. Landcorp runs 18 dairy farms with 20,000 cows on 8390ha of Wairakei Pastoral land and leases a total of 12,467ha with the rest mainly for dairy support. Once the estate is fully developed, it will have 21 dairy farms.
DairyNZ data shows that the average herd size on a Central Plateau dairy farm is 747 cows on a 280ha farm.
The Pamu spokesman said the conversion would not mean an increase of its dairy activities including a lift in cow numbers. ‘‘Landcorp is at the tail end of the development programme following its review of land-use on the Wairakei Estate. We are still in the planning stage for the remaining dairy conversion.’’
He would not comment on whether the conversions required additional infrastructure being built, or elaborate on how the new dairy land would be incorporated into the existing farm businesses.
Wairakei Pastoral said in the consent document that the land use change’s low environmental impact meant there was no need for it to be publicly notified. The consent includes a permit to discharge nutrients and microbial pathogens not exceeding 21 kilograms of nitrogen per hectare a year or 528 tonnes of nitrogen per year.
The company expected the development would boost regional GDP by $134 million per year.
A council spokeswoman said they were reviewing the application and had requested further information.