"Why would anyone make a law knowing that the people it concerns have no way of complying with it?" Photo / Richard Davison
"Why would anyone make a law knowing that the people it concerns have no way of complying with it?" Photo / Richard Davison
Driven by "frustration and lack of hope", West Otago farmer Bryce McKenzie is mooting a tractor trek to Parliament to show farmers' feelings over new freshwater regulations.
McKenzie has been inundated with support for the idea which he envisaged would be done in a relay format.
He has spent all his life on the land, including about 45 years farming on his own account.
His sons now farmed the same land he and his father had.
While not against new laws - "and laws we can try and achieve" - McKenzie said there were about three parts of the new regulations, which take effect next month, that most farmers would not be able to achieve.
"We have a law coming in ... that will tell us that we have to have our crops sown by a certain date, November 1 for Otago Southland, irrespective of the weather.
"We will also have to get consent from most likely someone who has never been on the land to sow crops in order to feed the animals in the winter.
"We are also told that if the stock pug more than 50 per cent of the paddock to 20cm or more, then we will be breaking the law and subject to prosecution. This is regardless of the weather. If it's a wet winter, this is impossible and no farmer in the South will be able to achieve this."
"Why would anyone make a law knowing that the people it concerns have no way of complying with it?" he said.
Dairy cows graze in fog at Edendale in Southland. Photo / Stephen Jacquiery
McKenzie has been heavily involved with the award-winning Pomahaka Water Care Group, a farmer-led catchment monitoring group.
He had seen the "massive amount of work and money" farmers were pouring into improving water quality with very positive results, he said.
"Would it not be more value to New Zealand if farmers put the cost of getting consents into building sediment traps and planting out critical source areas?" he asked.
It was not just a southern issue; it affected farmers throughout New Zealand and he expected there would be very few places, during extreme rain events, that would not break the laws.
Since publicly expressing his thoughts, McKenzie had received a call from a farmer, aged about 40, who had been contract milking all his career.
It was finally at the point where he was going to buy his first block of land but, having seen the legislation, he had decided against it and was now not even sure if he wanted to continue farming.
McKenzie had already been in contact with Federated Farmers, which he believed would be a good organisation to instigate the tractor relay.
He did not want to bring the country to a standstill - "that's not the point of it" - but he was keen to get 30-odd tractors doing 80km-100km legs, starting in Bluff and Cape Reinga.
That would then mean that farmers were only tied up with it for a day, and other motorists would not get held up.
