Philip Gregan: Vineyard areas need new rules

The grape and wine industry is an important component of the changing face of agricultural land use. Over the past decade or so the producing area of vineyards has grown from around 6000ha to more than 30,000ha, making viticulture the largest horticultural land use in the country.

Paralleling the expansion in vineyard area, the number of wineries has surged as processing capacity has been developed to cater for rising grape production.

As well as wineries opening, many established wineries have grown substantially in size.

That growth in vineyard area and winery processing capacity has enabled the industry to produce more wines to sell overseas. With strong demand, exports have lifted from just $125 million in 1999 to well over $900 million for the year ended February 2009.

The vineyard and winery expansion has been concentrated in heartland regions - Marlborough, Hawkes Bay, Central Otago, Gisborne, Waipara, Nelson, Wairarapa and in smaller areas such as Matakana and Waiheke Island.

The regional concentration of growth has in turn raised significant resource management issues for the industry in those regions.

Grape and wine production brings with it all the effects of an agriculturally based activity - noise, smells, truck movements and so on. This inevitably brings the industry into conflict with people living in the country who think peace and quiet should be the rule.

In the case of the wine industry, it is the aesthetic dimension of the industry itself that attracts people to regions where grapes are grown and wine is produced.

These people indulge in the romance associated with the wine industry, but are not so comfortable with vineyard and winery production processes that produce the wine in the first place. This theme has been common in a number of areas: Martinborough in Wairarapa, in Waipara, in Marlborough, in West Auckland.

People are attracted by the romance of the vine, they have the pleasure of enjoying a glass of wine overlooking the ranks of carefully tended vines - but where did those noisy tractors, harvesters and wind machines come from?

This tension between a "right to farm" and a "right to lifestyle" is one that is being played out in many of the wine regions.

From an industry perspective, our first instruction to grapegrowers and winemakers is to adopt neighbour-friendly policies.

For example if wind machines or helicopters are going to be used to fight frost risk, tell your neighbours before the frost-fighting season arrives. Explain that your livelihood is at stake, that these devices are used as a last resort, and given the costs of using them, you don't do so when it is not necessary.

Second, the industry tries to mitigate cross-boundary effects as much as possible by adopting best practice as far as can reasonably be achieved. To that end we have published, for example, a code of practice for using wind machines.

However, good neighbour and best practice policies can take the industry only so far.

As a result the industry is heavily involved in making submissions to regional and district councils on local plans.

That process is very important, but is very expensive because, in essence, the same issues need to be relitigated through each district and regional council plan.

There has to be a more cost-efficient and effective way of achieving the desired outcomes of this process.

The answer, of course, lies in the Resource Management Act.

The act provides for national standards that are binding on regional and district plans under the hierarchy of plans established in the act.

The number of national standards established under the act has been limited despite the clear provisions for those national standards residing in the act.

To move some way down this path, under the last Government, the wine industry worked with the Ministry for the Environment and several councils to produce a planning guide for the wine industry which sits on the quality planning website of the ministry.

This was a significant step forward for the wine industry, but is still short of what is needed in terms of national standards.

Why are we investing so much time, effort and money on resource management issues?

That is easily explained. At the heart of the resource management issues facing the grape and wine industry is a simple question: how does the country go about protecting the productive potential of agricultural land?

This is a critical question for all of us as the economy is based on the ability to produce world-class goods from agricultural land. Everyone is dependent in one way or another on this fact. But the fundamental issue of protecting the productive potential of agricultural land has not really been addressed in the national standards proposed so far under the Resource Management Act.

This most singularly important issue for the economy must be addressed. The time is now.

From our perspective we hope the commitment the new Government has shown to making the Resource Management Act a more dynamic piece of legislation will be carried through in a way that comes to grip with this issue.

In that context much thought needs to be given to the subdivision of rural land and the consequences that has for production on neighbouring land.

Rural lifestyle values can be a real threat to productive use of the land if the new occupants object to the normal, established and best practice activities carried out by their grape growing, sheep farming or onion producing neighbours.

Subdivision of land, cross-boundary effects, reverse sensitivities, no-complaints covenants - these are not just marginal rural issues of little import.

Retaining the productive potential of our agricultural land is an issue of national importance at the very heart of our national wealth and wellbeing. As a matter of national importance it demands a national answer.

National standards under the Resource Management Act are that answer.

* Philip Gregan is chief executive of NZ Winegrowers.

* Agriculture editor Owen Hembry's column returns in May.