By Simon Shepherd
It is important for New Zealand to be clean and green, but the country's major export earner is having trouble living up to the image.
Figures out this week are expected to show that run-off from dairy farms is becoming an increasing problem.
However there is hope in the form of a new hi-tech way to keep effluent where it should be.
Dairy effluent is essentially free fertiliser – getting washed into holding ponds and then sprayed onto pastures.
But it is tricky guessing how much to apply before paddocks become saturated and the effluent flows into the local waterways.
Dairy farmer Ben Smith tells 3 News effluent is a major issue.
“It’s something that is going to be there all the time, and we concentrate on new means to create a better environment.”
Research company Re-Gen, in conjunction with Massey University, is helping farmers to go hi-tech.
“Most farmers really do want to do the right thing,” says Re-Gen Ltd spokesperson Bridgit Hawkins.
“They want to manage their farms sustainably, they don’t want to pollute and they are after the tools to enable them to do that.”
Mr Smith’s $7000 box of gadgets measures wind, rain, soil moisture and soil temperature.
The data he collects is transmitted via a cell phone network to a server in wellington, which then sends back a text every morning telling the farmer how much they can spray.
“Live information like this is all important in this day and age,” he says.
Avoiding run-offs means fewer fines – like the record $90,000 awarded against Waikato’s Allan Crafar.
Dairying has been trying to clean up its act, setting up the Clean Streams Accord in 2003 – with limited compliance.
“it was meant to be 100 percent from day one – we’ve had consistently about one in six farmers refusing to comply,” says Forest and Bird’s Kevin Hackwell.
The latest annual figures are due out this week and 3 News understand that, instead of an improvement, less farmers are complying.
It seems Re-Gen has spotted a market opportunity in the farms that need help.
3 News