The Bay of Plenty regional council's intention to change land use in the Rotorua Lakes catchment is going to have far reaching consequences says Federated Farmers Bay of Plenty branch president John Scrimgeour.

'It sets a precedent for other issues,” says John.

'If they are successful in saying to farmers that you can't dairy on this land, then it becomes a question of where else they can apply that same principle – and say you can't do whatever.

'It doesn't have to be dairying. It could be some other land use. That certainly is an area of concern obviously.”

The BOP regional council's draft policy on the lakes catchment suggests council resources will in future focus on land use changes over land management changes.

'The farming community is well aware of the need to minimise the runoff into those lakes and I know has been working quite hard to minimise that and will continue to do so,” says John.

'But at the same time, should still have the freedom to practice the most appropriate use of their land.”

The council's policy is a shift from land management which the council doesn't believe will achieve its environmental targets. It puts dairy farming in the lakes catchment on notice.

Blaming dirty dairying

Dairying is blamed for Lake Rotorua's degraded water quality caused by high nitrogen and phosphorous levels. The regional council wants to drastically reduce the amounts which are mainly pasture fertiliser run off.

The lake currently receives 755 tonnes of nitrogen per year from the catchment. Council says a decrease of 320 tonnes is required to achieve the water quality target for the lake.

The Strategic Policy and Planning Committee heard in October that the target can only be achieved by changes in land use. Pastoral farming round the lake is the source of about 70 per cent of the nitrogen flowing into the lake.

'If all farmers in the Rotorua Lakes catchment adopted best management practice and made the changes that we know are available now, it still wouldn't achieve the reduction that's needed,” says the council's land management group manager Warwick Murray.

'Clearly we are going to need to have land use change so the council is considering or has an obligation to consider how it might support land use change – by implication financially support land use change.”

So far, the draft policy is a statement of intent only says Warwick. It identifies where the council stands on land management and land use change at this point in time. The positions do not identify any methods or plan of action to be undertaken.

'The ways the positions can be implemented will be addressed as a next step and will involve extensive community discussions and debate,” says Warwick.

For dairy farmers, land management changes mean riparian planting, less use of nitrogen fertilisers, changing grazing patterns and stand off pads.

Land use change means changing the farm from dairying to something else.

'The council hasn't agreed on how that might be done,” says Warwick.

'Basically it's just in principle at this stage, that we recognise that land use change will be required and we accept an obligation in principal to consider financially supporting it.”

Money for land use

'In other words, if council's going to spend money on getting these changes it will put its priority effort into financially supporting land use change, rather than land management change.

'That's not to say they are not prepared to provide financial support for land management change, but the priority effort will be going towards land use change.”
By implication, the responsibility for achieving land management change will rest with the landowner says Warwick.

Dairy farmers are currently up about 56kg/ha nitrogen loss on average. They are talking about getting down to about 40kg/ha says Warwick. There's 16kg/ha that could be quite readily achieved by adopting better land management.

'There's lots of arguments about how much reduction can be achieved, we are keen to have a symposium where we can get that debated and discussed,” says Warwick.

John Scrimgeour is also looking forward to the negotiating phase. He says changing land use on property owners is a huge loss of right. There are also huge financial implications for property owners if their earning capacity is lowered.