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Dairying

Dairying is an important land use and industry in New Zealand. Dairying:

comprises 11% of the total land used in agriculture (1.76 million ha)
produces 23% of New Zealand’s total export income ($6.88 billion in 2000/01)
involves 3.45 million dairy cows (number of cows in milk in the 2000/01 season).

Dairying, like most intensive land uses including cities, affects water quality and aquatic environments. The ongoing intensification of existing dairy farms into regions not used to dairying has increased the importance of effectively addressing impacts on aquatic environments.

The Ministry is involved in the following projects that aim to address the effects dairying has on the environment:

Dairying and Clean Streams Accord

If environmental management is to be seen as in integral and important component of the dairy industry, an industry-backed action plan to improve the environmental performance of dairy farming is needed. If done well, industry self-management is more effective in achieving positive environmental outcomes than relying only on a rule-based regime imposed by regulatory agencies.

With the restructuring of the NZ dairy industry, a single company (Fonterra) now covers over 95% of the country’s milk production. In May 2002, the Chief Executives of the Ministry for the Environment, Fonterra, Ministry of Agriculture and Forestry and Environment Waikato agreed to work together to achieve clean, healthy water in dairying areas. This work has resulted in Environment Minister Marian Hobbs signing a Dairying and Clean Stream Accord (PDF 73 KB) with Fonterra Chairman Henry van der Heyden, Agriculture Minister Jim Sutton, and Local Government New Zealand’s Regional Affairs Chairman Neil Clarke on 26 May 2003.

The Accord aims to minimise the impact of dairying on New Zealand’s streams, rivers, lakes and wetlands so that they are suitable, where appropriate, for fish, drinking by stock and swimming. The Accord specifies targets to keep dairy cattle out of streams, lakes and wetlands, to treat farm effluent, and to manage the use of fertilisers and other nutrients.

The Dairying and Clean Streams Accord: Snapshot of Progress - 2006/2007 outlines work done during the 2006/07 dairying season to achieve the targets and objectives of the Accord. (Earlier snapshots were taken for 2005/2006, 2004/2005 and 2003/2004).
A Monitoring and Reporting Strategy for the Dairying and Clean Streams Accord - In the process of developing a Dairying and Clean Streams Accord monitoring and reporting strategy, many issues were considered. A strategy was recommended that assesses the environmental benefits of the Accord. The strategy is a mixture of existing, modified, and new monitoring across the country.

Environmental farm plans

Environmental farm plans are used by a number of regional councils to encourage best environmental management practices on rural land.

The Ministry for the Environment, in consultation with regional councils and dairy industry representatives, is currently reviewing these farm plans to find out more about:

the range of farm plans in use
how regional councils assist their development and implementation
their effectiveness in promoting environmental management on New Zealand’s dairy farms.