High country farmers are in the middle of a "revolution", Jonathan Wallis says. Photo / Stephen Jacquiery
High country farmers are in the middle of a "revolution", Jonathan Wallis says. Photo / Stephen Jacquiery
High country farmers from around Wanaka, Queenstown, Central Otago and the MacKenzie Country met in Wanaka last week to discuss new regulations and a growing "conflict" around a perceived need for change. Kerrie Waterworth from I reports.
The hundred seats (limited due to Covid-19 Alert Level 2 restrictions) were booked out days before the High Country Forum was held last Thursday night at the Wanaka Bowling Club.
Organiser Tim Scurr was not surprised.
"Country people are really hurting and this is all about what can be done to save New Zealand," he said.
Minaret Station farmer, High Country Accord chairman and High Country Advisory Group member Jonathan Wallis said farming was in the middle of a revolution at the moment.
"A whole range of factors are coming together. All eyes are on all rural land in New Zealand and it is invariably creating a huge conflict as it does that."
The high country used to be deemed Crown wastelands but that had changed over time, as had public perceptions around the high country, he said.
Retired Cardrona farmer and forum organiser Tim Scurr makes his opening remarks. Photo / Kerrie Waterworth
"Someone in Auckland wants to know the high country is being looked after, even though they don't really know where the high country is ... They also want to know they can have access to it even though they may never choose to access it."
Criffel Station co-owner and Wanaka Action Initiative (WAI) chairwoman Dr Mandy Bell has been involved in drafting the new national water policy in Wellington for the past two years.
She said she made it clear from the beginning improving water was not just a rural issue.
"We should not be talking about farm environmental plans, we should be talking about business plans, because we are all connected to water in some way in all of our businesses and they have an impact."
There was not enough scientific data to understand what was happening in our waterways and it took an average of 12 years for policy from Wellington to affect our daily lives, Bell said.
"Often it is communities who are leading and are the proactive ones in changing regulations, and I think in this community [Wanaka] we are moving into a really strong proactive space."
Wanaka Action Initiative chairwoman Dr Mandy Bell speaks to the audience at the High Country Forum on Thursday night in Wanaka. Photo / Kerrie Waterworth
There was increasing awareness among farmers of what needed to be done and they were doing it in a collaborative way with the whole of the community, she said.
Fifteen of the 17 large farms around Lake Wanaka had been working together for four years, which equated to 90 per cent of the farmed catchment managed under a consistent environmental plan, she said.
Soil scientist Peter Espie has been conducting trials and experiments on many of the high country farms for the past 40 years.
He said the high country could be summarised in two words: "unlocked potential".
The way of the future was to look to the past and the incorporation of biological stimulants, such as humate or light brown soft coal, stimulated the soil biology and improved stock health and plant nutrition, he said.
However, he also warned a fundamental change was happening in the high country.
"One hundred and fifty years ago, when some of your grandfathers and some of your forebears came to this country and put merinos and sheep on to it, the country could support them and the grass would grow, the tussocks got burnt and they ate in between."
AgResearch scientist Dr Peter Espie advises high country farmers to encourage their children to become interested in science if they want to have a voice in how the high country is managed in years to come. Photo / Kerrie Waterworth
Hieracium, or hawkweed, had changed extensive high country pastoralism, he said.
"If it has not hit your property yet and you are farming in the high country, be aware you are having a tea party in the middle of a railway line and there is a locomotive making a loud noise and it is getting progressively closer."
Espie said in 1960, Simon's Pass Station had one of the best tussock grass cover in the MacKenzie Basin and almost no hieracium cover but by 1995 it was 40 per cent bare land and 25 per cent hieracium cover.
Previously, farmers were blamed for destroying the tussocks by overgrazing, he said.
"We put down radioactive sulphur and we measured how those patches take up nutrients. Hieracium will take up sulphur from a metre away; it lowers the pH; it releases aluminium; it takes up water; it has got four times its above-ground biomass below ground, and that is why it is killing tussocks.
"That is why it is lowering biodiversity and it is nothing to do with bad farming."
Espie said there was a steady, planned deterioration of the influence of the high country in policy and science.
Jonathan Wallis, whose family farms Minaret Station on the shores of Lake Wanaka, presents a report on the state of the High Country Accord. Photo / Kerrie Waterworth
"There are tons of people in regional councils who call themselves ecologists but who have a very different view of the management of high country.
"So you have to think deeply and strategically how do you change that? How do you influence the next generation to bring forward the scientist who will go and pursue this particular vision?"
It started with farmers encouraging their children to enjoy science and support "people like Mandy [Bell] and Jonathan [Wallis] in their dialogue with the bureaucrats in Wellington, who are real people and not the enemy.
"Wrong ideas and wrong science are the enemy and if you get that, you can have a meaningful discussion and make changes for the better."
