Why not water where and when we need it?

The drought has broken but the recovery will take months, maybe even a year or two, of optimal conditions for growth and there’s no guarantee we’ll get that.

Those of us who lived with drought for generation know how hard it is. You go backwards in dry years, catch up in good ones but rarely get much further ahead before the next drought hits.

The development of irrigation doesn’t mean drought doesn’t still hurt, but the impact isn’t as hard and the recovery afterwards is faster.

However, not everyone in dry areas has access to water for irrigation, some of those who do don’t always have enough and those who do face higher hurdles when using it.

The economic and social benefits of irrigation are obvious, the environmental ones are less so and one of the reasons for that is that, in the past, not everyone realised that irrigation could have a detrimental impact on both the quantity and quality of water.

That said, Federated Farmers president Don Nicolson points out that in spite of what you may hear and read, New Zealand’s water quality is still very good:

. . .  a joint study between the US universities, Yale and Columbia, ranked New Zealand second out of 163 nations for water quality . . .

Better is of course relative. We can’t afford to rest on our laurels and most of us are striving to meet ever higher standards at ever higher cots.

Water is a critical component of every farmer’s daily management regime and its use extends well beyond sustaining crops and drinking water for stock. Each year, our members make significant on-farm investments in order to reduce their overall impact on the quality and quantity of water. These investments include improvements in irrigation efficiency, nitrification inhibitors, effluent storage systems, riparian management and staff education and training.

Yet ladies and gentlemen, to be green, you have to be in the black these days.  Well into the black in fact, evidenced by the shrinking number of mum and dad farmers. 

 It is difficult if not impossible to stay in the black when farming dry land in drought-prone areas. We ‘ve got the water we need, but a lot of it isn’t where we need it when we need it.

There is a solution to that problem.

Water storage provides the potential to manage water for multiple purposes, to achieve environmental and community objectives as well as pressing economic growth. The world wants our food if we have the public policy will to expand our capacity to meet it.

There is real potential to increase the area of land under irrigation in New Zealand. For example, in Canterbury alone, it’s estimated half a million hectares of land could be irrigated. That’s about the size of Trinidad & Tobago.  Without the development of significant water storage and associated infrastructure, irrigation development in Canterbury is expected to fall well short of its potential.

A further impediment is regulation by public opinion.

Spurred on by myopic special interest groups, New Zealanders have become increasingly concerned about the potential environmental effects stemming from agricultural use and the intensification of land use. Consenting processes for water infrastructure, particularly large-scale infrastructure including storage, is protracted, adversarial and expensive.  That has to change unless New Zealand wishes to forego developed nation status.

 This isn’t an argument for not taking into account environmental imapcts of irrigation and intensification. But the potential for problems shouldn’t stop development when there are ever improving practices, systems and technology to minimise any negative affects.

Like other activities, pastoral agriculture can impact the quality of New Zealand’s freshwater resources. We know that and we acknowledge it.  The impacts of farming can be classified into two sources being either point and non-point source discharges.

Point source discharges include those from specific sources, for example partially treated human sewage or industrial discharges to water.  Agriculture, especially dairy, has been to the forefront in positively addressing point source discharges from the farm.

Non-point or diffuse source discharges are caused by rainwater washing organic matter, sediment and nutrients into waterways. Diffuse pollution also occurs where nutrients or other contaminants leach into groundwater.

Over the past decade, farm based point source discharges to waterways and waterbodies have become less and less of an issue. This is in large part due to improvements in on-farm waste treatment processes – such as land based methods of effluent disposal.  As a farmer I can tell you the waste from grazing animals is a very effective fertiliser.

Non-point source discharges and in particular sediment erosion and nutrient loss from land, presents a much harder issue for us to address.  It’s complex and includes the time lag from discharge, the actual impact and the linkage between land use activities and nutrient loss.

However, farmers and the primary sector are taking the lead through significant investments in science and technology and on-farm mitigation such as riparian plantings through to better systems, training and new technologies.

Despite these efforts, over the next few years I predict, agriculture will continue to be under increasing pressure to address these non-point source discharges.  But and here’s the but, management of New Zealand’s freshwater resources must provide for economic growth and development.

I repeat what I said earlier, we farmers must be profitable businesses.  We do not live in a subsidised nirvana so it’s about finding the right economic/environmental balance.  Need I remind you that when you drive home to a house that is heated and full of appliances, we are all harvesters of the environment.  Federated Farmers does support efforts to reduce the negative impacts of land-based primary production on water but it must be practical and practicable.

 Our clean green image is one of our marketing advantages which gives us a vested interest in ensuring reality matches the rhetoric.

Furthermore we don’t just use the water to grow pastures and crops, fill stock troughs and wash down dairy sheds. We swim in it and we drink it ourselves. That gives us a very real incentive to safeguard it.

Nicolson concluded his speech by flying a kite which he stressed was his personal opinion, not FF policy:

 Perhaps the time has come to reassess the role of the Ministry for the Environment in respect of water delivery.

Water is, I believe, not too dissimilar infrastructure from our complex national road network.  Both roads and water are vital to commerce and communities.  But why do we treat roads so differently from water?  Having an agency of Government, a New Zealand Water Agency if you like, dedicated to the delivery of this staple of life is essential to overcome an ad hoc, seat of the pants approach that has typified this nation’s treatment of the water resource.  The lack of coherent development massively underplays our real potential as a global food exporter.

 I’m not keen on more bureaucracy in general but I think this is an idea worthy of investigation and may be a way to ensure that water policy gets the high priority it needs.

 New Zealand is a small producer of food in global terms but we are a major exporter of food. 

We export the most lamb of any nation and are the second largest exporter of dairy products on the planet.  If we take that last export, dairy products, our powerhouse status is built off producing a mere two percent of world’s milk. With a growing world population it highlights our economic potential if the public policy will exists to support it.

Every lamb, every kernel of grain and every kilogram of milksolids we increase the export of, is not just good for lifting our farm profits, its great for every single New Zealander.  Water is the hinge on the economic door.

Nicolson’s speech was delivered to an agricultural summit in Wellington. It’s worth reading in full.