Celebrating environmental enhancement
As a nation, do we want to go down a regulatory pathway or voluntary integrated farm plans that capture all aspects of resource management? - Andrew Morrison.
The annual round of Ballance Farm Environment Award evenings is underway, celebrating the fantastic job our farmers around the country are doing to protect and enhance their environments.
These Awards, which are run by the New Zealand Farm Environment Trust, are well entrenched in the farming calendar.
Started by Waikato farmer and environmentalist Gordon Stephenson, the purpose of the Awards was to celebrate farmers balancing productivity and profitability.
They have now been running in some regions for over 15 years, but their relevance has grown exponentially as farming practices come under increased scrutiny from the wider community as well as our export markets.
Quite rightly, our consumers are demanding to know that the food they consume is produced in a manner that has minimal impact on the environment while maintaining the highest standards of animal welfare.
The Ballance Farm Environment Awards celebrates farmers doing exactly that.
Visit the NZFET website and see the large catalogue of winners from right across the primary production spectrum. Each winner has a great story to tell and NZFET has a wealth of information and resources about farmers doing their best to balance productivity and profitability while protecting and enhancing their environment.
The fact that these awards have been going for so long is testament to the many farmers who are achieving this balance, which bodes well as the primary sector faces change in response to government policy changes.
This government has some laudably aspirational targets around climate change, water quality and biodiversity, the question is how best to achieve these targets and ensure all stakeholders are engaged in the process.
As a nation, do we want to go down a regulatory pathway or voluntary integrated farm plans that capture all aspects of resource management?
As an organisation we are engaging with government as they go about setting policy and favour the simplicity of integrated farm plans, which also incorporate the standards required by our export markets around environmental and livestock management.
For the majority of farmers, it is not a big push to achieve these standards. But we do need to be mindful of some of our practices, particularly as we go into the winter months.
The grazing of winter feed crops is certainly under scrutiny and I urge all farmers who grow these to think hard about how they will graze them to ensure good feed utilisation while protecting their soil, water and nutrient resources.
There are a number of resources about winter grazing management on Beef + Lamb New Zealand or DairyNZ websites and keep an eye out for the new winter grazing workshops we are in the process of rolling out.
One of the highlights of the past month was spending time with enthusiastic, bright young leaders from the US, Australian and New Zealand Sheep Industries.
They were in New Zealand as part of the Sheep Industry Ambassador programme which this country was fortunate enough to host this year.
We were able to showcase our pasture-based production systems and some of the technologies that make our sheep industry world-leading.
After meeting these incredible young people, I feel very optimistic that the future of the industry is in very safe hands.