A $9.7 million funding boost from the International Visitor Levy has been welcomed by Federated Farmers.

It says the funding “will put feral goats and wild deer directly in the crosshairs”.

“This is an incredibly positive announcement and exactly the kind of work the International Visitor Levy (IVL) should be funding,” pest management spokesman Richard Dawkins said in a statement.

“New Zealand has a serious pest problem, with wild animals like deer and feral goats costing farmers almost half a billion dollars each year.

“There’s also a significant environmental cost as these pests are doing huge damage not only on farms but throughout our conservation estate.”

He said the issue was only getting worse.

“Pests are totally out of control and they’re breeding fast. We need to get on top of them before it’s too late.”

In 2019, the Government introduced the IVL to fund conservation and infrastructure used for tourism.

The levy raises around $240m each year, but Dawkins said “less than half of that is spent on its intended purpose”: just $55m on conservation projects and $35m on infrastructure projects, he claimed.

Dawkins said the remaining funds “effectively go back into the general government coffers” and are diverted and swapped out to cover baseline funding for the Department of Conservation (DoC) and the Ministry of Business, Innovation and Employment.

Federated Farmers has challenged the Government to commit to investing 100% of the IVL funding into its intended purpose.

Earlier this week, it released the results of its 2026 National Pests Survey, which it said showed New Zealand’s pest problem had “reached crisis point”.

“Our survey clearly shows that farmers are spending more money and effort controlling pests – but they’re still going backwards,” Dawkins said.

Federated Farmers said the survey estimates the cost of pests to farmers to be about $466m a year in direct control costs and lost production.

“Two-thirds of farmers now report pest numbers have increased over the past five years, up from around half in 2024,” it said in its press release.

Farmers were now “spending an average of $6.18 per hectare each year on pest control”, which was up around 13% in two years, it said.

The survey also claimed farmers are eight times more likely to identify forestry or Crown land than another farm as the neighbouring land use making pest control difficult, which was “precisely why this funding announcement targeting wild goat and deer populations in conservation areas was so significant”.

“Farmers are doing their bit on their own land, but we aren’t going to see real progress unless we can get on top of the pest populations in the DoC estate,” Dawkins said.

“Recreational hunters are a tool, but they alone are not the solution. We’re not going to shoot our way out of this problem one weekend at a time.”

Dawkins called on the Government to take a more strategic and co-ordinated approach to pest management.

“This funding announcement is a great start and will make a meaningful difference, but the time for sitting around and talking deer strategy has passed.

“Now is the time for action with a nationally co-ordinated pest management strategy that recognises the significant environmental and economic cost of these pests.”