Groundswell says farmers should think carefully 'before deciding whether to sign up'. Photo / Brendon McMahon
Updated: West Coast farmers faced with the new Freshwater Farm Plan regime are being urged by Groundswell to boycott it.
It says farmers should think carefully “before deciding whether to sign up”.
“Our boycott is focused on the Freshwater Farm Plan mandate introduced by the previous Government,” Groundswell founder Bryce MacKenzie said.
However, the West Coast Regional Council said farmers had no choice about it.
The new regime applies to all farm land holdings across the region including rural blocks above 20ha, and the council has been mandated to oversee the new regime.
Acting consents and compliance manager Rachel Clark said it was not a matter of farmers having a choice.
“Once it goes live they have 18 months to submit something and get it audited.”
Clark said the new regime had been passed to the council to manage the implementation and oversight of farm plans at a high level.
The regime rollout begins on the West Coast from February and will be region-wide by mid-2025.
“Once it’s all up and running we’re custodians of the information and have a compliance role, if things go wrong,” Clark said.
The council also had a role in the accreditation of the required certifiers and auditors. Those roles were needed in order to get the individual freshwater farm plans operative, Clark said.
Groundswell environmental spokesman Jamie McFadden said the new regime was unworkable and “prescriptive and inflexible”.
“There are multiple fishhooks including lack of clarity around private property information, the requirement to be compliant with all rules relating to freshwater -including the unworkable ones such as stock exclusion - and, identifying controversial classifications such as Significant Natural Areas and Sites and Areas of Significance to Māori.”
It had also missed “a golden opportunity” to develop an empowering system tailored to individual and regional differences, McFadden said.
West Coast Regional councillor Allan Birchfield said the Freshwater Farm Plan regime was another example of regulation hitting private property.
“As I’ve said, it’s getting like North Korea the way the regulations are going.
“My suggestion to the farmers would be if everyone said no, what could they do?
“Just tell the Government to stick it.”
Birchfield said he did not buy the rationale the new regime was needed in order to meet market requirements - given what some of New Zealand’s trading partners allegedly did to their workers.
“I don’t buy that. For instance, the Chinese couldn’t care less about human rights,” he said.
Lake Ianthe farmer and regional councillor Andy Campbell said South Westland farmers were still unclear and he understood the regime’s perimeters were still emerging.
He was personally waiting until it became clear what the new Government would do.
“They’re meant to be putting out a template for it, but who knows what this new Government is going to do.”
But a recent workshop on the regime at Hari Hari had not provided attendees any more clarity, Campbell said.
“They weren’t very impressed because there was no real information and no answers.”
Of particular concern was the requirement for farmers to pay for an auditor and certifier.
“I don’t think we’re going to have a choice who they are.
“It’s just going to be a big gravy train - that’s the scary bit. Right now farmers don’t need any more cost.”
Freshwater Farm Plans director Warwick Murray, for the Regional and Unitary Councils of New Zealand, said the new regime did not affect lifestyle blocks as such.
However grazing, arable, and mixed grazing properties over 20ha; and horticultural blocks above 5ha needed to have a freshwater farm plan under the new regime, Warwick said.
On the West Coast the first group of 85 farms inland from Hokitika tagged by the West Coast Regional Council for the compulsory plans will go ‘live’ in February.
The groups align with freshwater plan areas across the region previously identified by the council.
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