It will be important for the dairy companies to provide more support and resources to farmers The dairy industry is taking its commitments to water quality improvement seriously.
DairyNZ and the Dairy Companies Association of New Zealand (DCANZ) released ''One Year On'', a report outlining the progress the industry has made during the first year of the Sustainable Dairying: Water Accord, last week.
While the dairy industry has met or made significant progress against some targets and commitments, it could do better in others.
The Water Accord is a voluntary dairy industry-wide list of targets and commitments for improving water quality.
DairyNZ's environmental policy manager Dr Mike Scarsbrook said the report showed good progress on key environmental areas, including stock exclusion from waterways, effluent and riparian management and accreditation of expert advisers. Areas needing more work included nutrient management data collection, effluent compliance in some regions and data collation and verification systems across all dairy companies.
KEY TARGETS90% of stock had to be excluded from waterways by May 31, 2014, and 100% excluded by May 31, 2017. All stock had to be excluded from significant wetlands by May 2014.
''Both have big water quality benefits,'' Dr Scarsbrook said.
''We achieved 94% against the 90% target, but that data is not fully verified.''
However, the significant wetlands target had not been achieved, as some regional councils had yet to identify them in their areas.
All stock crossings must be bridged or culverted by May 2018.
''We have 36,000 crossing points identified [throughout the country], with an average of three per farm.
''We think we have got about 99% as there may be a few extra that need to be picked up, and the data is not verified.''
All dairy farmers must have a riparian management plan (RMP)completed by May 2020 and planting completed by 2030.
He expected to see about 50% of farmers with a plan in place by 2016.
Eighty-five percent of dairy farms must supply information about nutrient management and loss by November 30, 2014, and 100% by the same time next year.
''At 56%, we have found it is an enormous undertaking and committing to 100% by 2015 is going to be huge challenge.
''It will be important for the dairy companies to provide more support and resources to farmers around how they collect and report information.''
All dairy farms were to be compliant with their regional council's effluent management rules by May 31, 2014.
He said data from several regional councils showed some instances of significant non-compliance but they were working towards reducing those figures. Under water use management and monitoring, 85% of dairy farms must have water meters by 2020.
''A lot of farms are covered by resource consent requirement around water meters.''
He was confident the target would be ''done and dusted'' by 2020.