Farming has become a controlled activity under the RMA in the Lake Taupo catchment. Mary-Jane Angus investigates what this means for farmers and why the rest of the country should be on notice.

With farming now classified as a controlled activity under the Resource Management Act (RMA), farmers around Taupo are facing an uncertain future.

Conditions enforced by Environment Waikato (EW) include implementing a nitrogen cap, which means limiting the nitrogen discharge from properties.

Taupo Lakecare Incorporated (TLC) group chairman Mike Barton says this will effectively place a cap on productivity, and under current proposals is expected to force some farms out of business.

And the rest of New Zealand should take notice because backing up our clean, green image will become increasingly important.

Growing trade threats like food miles are signs this type of regulation is likely to spread to other areas.

The nitrogen discharge allowance (NDA) does not just mean a limit on nitrogen fertiliser application. In fact, the biggest source of nitrogen leaching is livestock, and so the cap can effectively limit stock numbers.

And it also flows through to stock type - a bigger animal will excrete more urine, and so cattle are bigger culprits than sheep.

“It’s not fertiliser application, it’s not fencing off streams, it is the urine that leaches through the soil profile that is the biggest contributor,” says Barton.

“That is the issue that I don’t think New Zealand agriculture has grasped yet.”

He acknowledges behaviour varies between soil types, but says different areas will have their own regional specific problems - whether it be regulations to control phosphorus output, or prevent erosion.

“We’re essentially talking about a cap on productivity and due to [static] commodity prices, you’re talking about a cap on income,” he says.

Barton says landowners have accepted the need to protect the lake, but debate surrounds the fairness of the regulations imposed by EW.

The final rules are still unknown because Environment Court appeals are being assessed as concerns are raised by farmers and foresters.

The issue has been around for several years - the Taupo Lakecare Incorporated Group was formed by farmers in 2000 to present a united voice to negotiate with Environment Waikato and various stakeholders.

Barton says negotiations to date have been amicable.

But with Environmental Court action in the pipeline, it is obvious the amicable front hides some deeper issues.

“We disagree, and the fact we’re taking it to the Environment Court shows there is a difference between what they think, and what we think is fair and just, and would allow us [farmers] to survive.”

After EW first gazetted the legislation, a hearings committee was held to review submissions, which took about nine months.

Barton says TLC appointed legal counsel to make a large number of submissions on the effect a nitrogen cap would have on landowners, which included modelling six properties representative of the farm types in the catchment.

“We showed that in 10 years those farms with any sort of debt would probably be unable to service that debt,” says Barton. And ironically the farms already achieving the highest returns were the most vulnerable because they are likely to have gone into debt to increase productivity.

The model used cost increases of 4.5% per year, which has also been used by EW. Based on recent annual cost increases this is conservative.

He believes what is happening in Taupo is the precursor to what will happen to the bulk of farming in New Zealand.

“We believe all farmers should be interested in what is happening here because it will basically set the ground rules for what happens throughout the rest of the country.

“Most councils are observing EW.”

The Taupo landholders are receiving a helping hand from the Lake Taupo Protection Trust, which aims to allocate $81.5 million to remove 20% of nitrogen from the catchment over 15 years.

Chairman and former Federated Farmers president John Kneebone told Rural News the trust’s first priority is to work with farmers to benchmark the amount of nitrogen lost from their properties, and it has agreed to cover the costs of this for the first year.

“I’ve spent all my political life resisting land controls, but now I will be helping implement them because the evidence of what we need to do to protect Lake Taupo is compelling,” he says.

But making things even harder is the fact this is a totally new approach for New Zealand, and in fact the world.

Kneebone admits it is difficult for lay people to really understand the science in detail.

He says it is tough to gauge farmer reactions, because all individuals will by affected differently. But he admits they are caught in a pretty invidious situation - they can’t sell their farms because buyers are not prepared to buy a farm without knowing what the terms of resource consents will be.

Kneebone says multiple point discharge can cover a whole farm and is a lot harder to measure than a single point discharge like a pipe.

Barton says there is nowhere else in the world looking at controlling and offsetting non-point source leaching.

He says there has not been a significant land sale in the catchment in the past 12 months.

Taupo sheep and beef farmer Alex Richardson says there are farmers out there who want to sell, but they cannot.

The uncertainty is what is really hurting landowners in the catchment right now.

Barton says there are a lot of stories among farming families - including those who moved to the area as ballot farmers, and some who have won environment awards.

He says land owners in the catchment area have been good environmental stewards. They fenced off streams in the early 1980s, and a lot of land was retired.

“Now they are going to be capped and understandably feel very aggrieved,” he says.

“There are a lot of people out there who are hurting.”

Alex Richardson moved to the area in 1993, and could have spent a lot of money improving productivity on his sheep and beef farm. But he took the attitude of slowly making improvements, and still sees he has a long way he could go, but the new rules make this less likely.

He is unhappy that they have only ever negotiated EW’s viewpoint.

“There has never been too much deviation from the cap, nor any other options presented,” he says.

“The decisions have been around the cap rather than the question of ‘can we have it’?”

Richardson still thinks there are other ways they could deal with the nitrogen leaching problem.

“There are other aspects we are not trialling - EW could have given us incentives.

“But we’re really trapped into a corner and we feel slightly bullied.

“This has affected our land income hugely, and as a farmer I feel I have been done-out of a lot of production potential through pasture improvements with no consideration and no remuneration.

“If I had been able to continue improving my farm I could have continued to increase the land value.”

Farmers are still unsure of the costs they will have to pay for their RMA consent.

There has been talk of between $300 and $800 in annual consent costs.

“But if we want to alter our farming, then that is a whole new consented activity and could involve a greater cost,” says Richardson.

For the original consent - the farmers understand it may cost $2000-3000 to do the benchmarking.

Richardson says everyone accepts the idea of paying for a consent when they want to increase productivity, but farmers are not happy they have to fork out for something that will restrict them.

He says farmers face a double whammy - “they’re putting these constraints on us, and then making us pay for it.

“There are some farmers who just can’t stand the uncertainty and have started benchmarking now.”