Problems with Stock Exclusion
On
hill country farms
The National Policy Statement on Fresh Water Management requires the exclusion of stock (deer, cattle, horses and pigs) from all land with slopes up to 15 degrees.
The proposed Waikato Regional Council plan change (PC1) requires exclusion on slopes up to 25 degrees.
“Stock exclusion up to 25 degree slopes and mitigation of every tiny creek on steeper slopes is an extreme measure, well beyond both NPS requirements. Micro-organisms naturally present in soils operate to convert soil nitrate to aquatically harmless N2 gas at rates that vary with oxygen levels, soil type and the presence of organic matter. Like most biological systems, natural de-nitrification at some level of soil nitrate concentration will be overwhelmed. While the exact rate of natural de-nitrification varies by site and sub-catchment the general effect means that the adverse effects of less intensive land use are disproportionately less than the more intensive uses commonly made of flatter contours.
It is noted that within PC1 the current Section 32 analysis, estimated Nitrogen losses from non-dairy pastoral land use have increased by only 4% over the forty year period 1972 to 2012.
Lower capital values reflect the lower per hectare profitability of less intensively managed property. A consequence of less intensive land use is that the NPS fencing requirements (or other measures) that may be readily amortised by intensive farming are completely beyond the means of most hill country farmers. To have such a measure with dire financial ramifications imposed without due regard for the views of the lone hill country community representative on the CSG and without adequate robust cost/benefit analysis is completely unacceptable to those communities.”
The costs for stock exclusion on non-dairying hill country land have been estimated to add another forty per cent to the average hill country farmer’s debt loadings. There is a very real possibility that banks will refuse to lend further money (to fund this stock exclusion work) due to this increase in debt loading making farms an uneconomic proposition from a lending perspective.
The result will be hill country farmers being driven off their land through, increased debt loading, the loss in capital values of their land and the consequent unsustainable costs for compliance which these stock exclusion requirements bring.
Andy Loader