The Price of Milk

One term guaranteed to raise the hackles in both town and country is dirty dairying. To its largely urban critics, dairying means profligate water use and effluent contamination. The industry, traditionally highly sensitive about its image, counters that dairying brings huge economic benefits and that most dairy farmers are environmentally responsible. But an Environment Canterbury report this week casts grave doubts on this benign industry message. This report found that just 40 per cent of Canterbury dairy farms fully complied with their effluent discharge consents, another 42% could have complied but did not do so, and a hard core of 18% were guilty of major consent breaches. These findings raise serious questions for both the industry and ECan itself.

The dairy industry must lift its environmental performance. It is staggering that after several years of controversy about dairying and water quality in Canterbury, 60% of dairy farms are still not rigorously complying with their discharge consents.

Those dairy farms with the significant consent breaches must be the priority, yet the sizeable proportion of dairy farms with more minor infringements is also a concern. Too many dairy farmers still clearly believe that protecting the environment is an option or a low priority rather than a binding requirement. There is no excuse for this persistent attitude and the failure to invest in environmental sustainability, given the high financial returns now being enjoyed by dairy farmers. The industry has made progress in fencing off streams and rivers to prevent the direct pollution of waterways, but the ECan report shows that too many dairy farms have not done enough in other areas.

Fonterra says it will remind its suppliers that they must comply with their consents. The corporate giant must be well aware that the ECan report will have a negative impact on the entire industry’s image in the region, undermining the efforts of dairy farmers who do play by the rules.

ECan’s handling of the dairying issue also deserves scrutiny.

Its report shows that 173 dairy farms had problems with the ponding of effluents, which can contaminate surface or ground water, yet although ECan did increase the number of infringement or abatement notices in the past year, it said that none of the breaches met the criteria for prosecution.

The fact that there has been little or no improvement in dairy- farming practices in recent years means that a tougher enforcement standard is needed to send a clear message to non-compliers.

Many urban critics of the dairying growth are fast running out of patience with the industry, and the ECan report will exacerbate this. In this respect it is intriguing that the report was released in the midst of a local-body election campaign in which the issue of water quality looms large.

But just as the dairy farmers must abandon their defensiveness and take action to clean up their industry, the townie critics must also demonstrate a sense of realism. Other agricultural export sectors are struggling at present, and the dairying boom provides an important boost to the regional economy.

The issue is not whether dairying should be part of the Canterbury landscape. It already is. Rather, the real question is how best the industry and ECan can work together to guarantee that dairying cleans up its messes.

(c) 2007 Press, The; Christchurch, New Zealand. Provided by ProQuest Information and Learning. All rights Reserved.