Searching for Middle Way of Doing Things
By GUT, Werner
ABOUT 50 years ago I built our cowshed or, let us say, a builder built it, I just helped him. It had a wash down pump installed.
Before that I only knew the bucket and water trough way. The dairy inspector was consulted of course. The yard washings were designed to go straight through one-foot pipes into the river below the shed, which was a tributary of the Kaupokonui River. The dairy inspector considered this to be the perfect way and the building inspector had no objections. It stayed like that for years. Many years later we had to change all that and pipe the shed washings into ponds, and rightly so.
But you know, in those days the river was teaming with beautiful trout. One could pop down the river and go and tickle a big trout or two, and be back home in half an hour with a beautiful clean fish.
Well, I am no expert, but the river harboured much more life, there were little morsels living there on the impurities which entered the water on which the fish could live. There were shags getting themselves the odd fish, They are now a rare sight and the nice healthy trout have almost totally disappeared. Could the rivers be too clean? Now of course one would not dare to suggest to go back to the old days’ sewerage systems. But are we not going overboard with all this fencing off streams? Where is the commonsense in our days? Have all the many animals in the world not had the right to enjoy our rivers over thousands of years, before we started using them? Again I don’t suggest that herds of cows should cross rivers several times a day on a regular basis, but is there never a middle way to anything today?
We now have a whole army of environmentalists making the life of us farmers difficult, suddenly we are the big sinners.
What the odd cow drops into a river is vegetable matter, exactly like the rotten brown remnants which come out of the mountain- reserve after heavy rain. This is much more acceptable than what we, including the many greenies, leave in our toilets.
Just because we have to use nature to produce the nation’s wealth, should we not be left to get on with it, instead of getting attacked from all directions? We are quite capable of looking after our farms and handing them on to the next generations in good order. And we don’t mind regulations which are sensible. Just leave us alone with your crazy theories on the way we treat our investment and our livelihood, our farms.
Nature is meant to be used in moderation, get off our backs and get your hands out of our pockets. We have to work hard and we know that today many people, including politicians, have not got a clue about agriculture, so we’d sooner have no advice and no new regulations from them. Most of us love our farms and the environment and try to work them sustainably.
The regional council says:
THE Taranaki Regional Council’s director resource management, Fred McLay, comments:
Taranaki dairy farmers lead the way nationally and in general they have excelled in installing and managing systems to treat dairy- shed waste. Their efforts have resulted in a great improvement in water quality over the years, to the benefit of those who consume water and those who use it for recreational purposes. Our waterways no longer flow green after milking.
The next challenge in protecting and enhancing water quality is to address farm run-off, and this is the focus of the riparian management programme promoted by the council and the dairy industry. Today’s dairy consumers, and society in general, expect farming to be carried out in a sustainable manner.
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