Carrots better than sticks

It was fantastic to hear about the release last month of the National River Water Quality Trends by Land, Air, Water Aotearoa (Lawa). They show the state of New Zealand’s freshwater is improving in more sites than declining.

This is a real compliment to the many farmers and rural communities that have put in a lot of hard work, made some alterations to long-accepted work habits and taken the time to read and understand the science and reasoning about why things had to change.

I have always said that while farmers may have been part of the problem, it is essential that they are part of the solution. If we don’t have the active buy-in from landowners the whole job just becomes that much harder.

While regulation is always one of the weapons in the arsenal, it should always the last resort.

I would like to think the lawmakers have taken note of these recent results and realise that incentive-based innovative approaches will always provide for better and more accelerated solutions.

Farmers will always react more positively to a carrot approach that encourages decisive action and will especially work hard to make substantial differences if the challenge is thrown down.

A punitive, regulation-based method to force certain behaviours only incites rebellion and a mindset of just doing the bare minimum.

Hopefully, plenty of people have spoken about this principle in their submissions to the Tax Working Group. The federation’s submission certainly made it clear.

For me, one of the most worrying thing when I look to the future is the continued mindset by government that taxes and levies will encourage behaviour.

Whether it be an Emissions Trading Scheme, water tax, land tax, increased fuel levies or maybe even a biodiversity levy; if government is required to administer it then that infers a certain amount of inefficiency that would be better spent on targeted projects and there won’t be the engagement from the affected stakeholders.

The other important thing is that the solutions must be based on good science.

It is not helpful to be confused by opinion and hearsay from Auckland and Wellington around the job farmers are doing and the state of our freshwater. What we are seeing now is farmers taking charge and ownership of their own waterways and exhibiting a very real pride on what they have done to improve the water quality. The innovation and use of technology shown on some of these farms is staggering, something which the Farm Environment Awards acknowledge.

They are held in 11 regions, with winners then put forward for the national title.

The recent winners of the Waikato award were Rod and Sandra McKinnon from Hinuera, who have made some stunning environmental gains while still running a profitable dairy business.

If you want to see an example of what many farmers are doing environmentally to a greater or lesser extent, then come along to their Field Day on May 10.

Andrew McGiven is president of Waikato Federated Farmers.