Can’t make silk policy out of a sow’s ear
Pig farmers fear the government’s policy on highly productive land risks driving them out of business.
The Government has clearly no knowledge of how our systems work. — Karl Stanley, pig farmer
The Government’s new National Policy Statement (NPS) on Highly Productive Land (HPL), threatens the future of indoor pig farming, according to Nzpork.
The NPS-HPL is intended to enhance the protection of highly productive land from inappropriate subdivision, use, and development.
Nzpork said that, because indoor pig farming was an intensive primary production activity that required access to arable land, it would be classified as “inappropriate land use”, due to not directly relying on the soil resource of the land.
Pork farmer Karl Stanley runs the award-winning 131ha Stanley Brothers farm in Taranaki and produces 11,500 pigs a year, feeding up to 40,000 people.
Stanley Brothers farm switched from a 70-year tradition of dairy farming to expand their piggery and cropping operations — a move which paid off for the family, the environment, and the local farming community, Stanley said.
All the effluent produced in the indoor piggery is irrigated on to the land as a rich natural fertiliser to grow and sell high-quality feed crops to local dairy farmers.
“We haven’t used synthetic fertilisers for over two decades and are now averaging about 24 tonnes per hectare of dry matter annually and around 900 bales of hay per season and 800 bales of haylage, all to be sold off locally,” Stanley said.
“It’s the ultimate circular economy. Our pigs work for the land, the land works for the pigs and we produce high-quality food. If we don’t have pigs, we don’t arable farm.”
Stanley was concerned about what the policy statement meant for his business.
“From our point of view, it doesn’t make sense. The Government has clearly no knowledge of how our systems work.”
Nzpork senior environmental adviser Hannah Ritchie believed no analysis of the environmental, economic or social impacts had been provided on how the decision was made.
She said pig farming was “more than just the buildings”.
“Every single piggery needs an effluent discharge field and that is why piggeries operate in a rural environment, incorporating either a pastoral or arable operation.”
The effluent was applied to the arable or pastoral land as a natural fertiliser, she said.
“The land can, in turn, grow feed for the pigs and local community. The two cannot be separated. That’s why piggeries are often sited on land considered highly productive.
“Two-thirds of commercial pig farms in New Zealand are situated on land classified as highly productive under the NPS-HPL.”
The compounding factor is that pig farmers may shortly be under pressure to potentially double their building footprints to account for code of welfare changes.
Nzpork believed that these conflicting policies would force many farmers’ ability to leave the industry.
Stanley said they would need to build five new indoor sheds to meet the welfare code changes. “It’s already hard enough with the regulatory hoops we need to jump through with simple things like building sheds. Our system is world-class, yet issues arise, and costs can build up.”
He believed the NPS-HPL added another layer of complexity “for no good reason”.
“We’d have to significantly reduce our pig numbers, making a lot of people unemployed and effectively making our operation economically unviable. We’d have no choice but to disappear.
“Farmers rely on us for food security to make milk year-round. If we’re not here they have to grow their own feed, piling on artificial fertiliser upping their costs and nutrient loading the land.”