Business Rural Autumn 2021

30 | ‘Mismanagement’ behind Pomahaka Virginia Wright F or Nelson and Fiona Hancox, farming isn’t so much a job as it is a way of life. They bought their first farm together, Kowai Downs, in 1993 but Nelson had been helping his parents, Harold and Kaye, on the family farm all his life. From the age of 13 he was saving the money he earned, first in the woolshed when he wasn’t at school, and later hay contracting, and by the time he was 21 Nelson bought his first farm with the help of his parents guaranteeing a loan. That was in the 80’s, and the combination of Rogernomics and mortgage rates peaking over 20% soon meant that the value of the 181 hectare farm, with its 1200 stock units, halved and he found himself owing more than the farm was worth with the bank trying to force him to sell. Both Nelson and the farm survived intact. Fast forward 36 years and the Hancox family now farm as three separate companies on the rolling hill country of West Otago: Kowai Downs is 530 hectares run by the stock manager Sean Bradley; Mt. Allen is 1489 hectares managed by Julian Kelly and Wohelo is 1595 hectares run by manager Paul Slack. As general manager Nelson remains in charge of fencing, drainage, buildings and regrassing with the help of his two oldest sons, Mitchell and Elliot, who are now working in the family business. Despite the workload around the farms Nelson finds a lot of his time taken up dealing with envi- ronmental concerns, particularly around freshwater. He’s been part of the Pomahaka Water Care Group since its inception seven years ago. “We were already dealing with sediment erosion issues in the Pomahaka, and we were already talking to Regional Council, local Iwi, and Fish and Game on a regular basis, so we decided to start up a local group,” he explains. Around the same time the Hancox family and staff had decided to move away from full cultivation of their crops and pasture sowing, in favour of di- rect drilling and minimum tillage, having recognized the need to mitigate the risk of losing sediment from paddocks, especially whenever there was a decent rainfall. “Before we were probably cultivating up to 150mm’s, whereas now it’s only to 50mm. We’re lucky here to be farming in silt and clay loam, and since we’ve been carbon testing our soils they’re also increasing in carbon with the lesser cultiva- tion.” They put a lot of sediment traps and measure- ments in place to collect data on sediment loss to show what was actually happening. They have something to prove, as Nelson explains. “At the moment the farmers of West Otago are getting blamed for the sediment in the Pomahaka, MEAT & WOOL » Nelson Hancox 021 468 954 MurrayEarthworks | Proudly supporting Kowai Downs for all your farm/fencing needs but 90% of the sediment in the Pomahaka has come from mismanagement of the river from the Regional Council, Fish and Game, and local Iwi. “Seventeen years ago they combined to put a moratorium on gravel extraction and since then the river’s been changing course at an alarming rate. As farmers, and members of the Water Care Group, we’ve been using Google Earth to measure what’s happening for the last seven years as the river moves, and ten hectares of prime farm land have gone into the river in that time. That land had two metres of silt soil on it so a total of around 200,000 cubic metres. Divide that by seven and you get roughly 30,000 cubic metres of soil a year.” As Nelson explains, the moratorium on gravel extraction was to protect native fish and was done in the belief that it was better to allow the river to follow its natural course. “But the course of the river was originally modified 130 years ago by the Chinese looking for gold, and then for a 100 years after that the farmers and the people of the district maintained it, and tried to keep it in its course, to avoid sediment getting into the Pomahaka and washed out to the Clutha, which they by and large achieved.” These days, with the combination of fencings, direct drilling, plantings and sediment traps, Nelson believes that the natural sediment loss from his farms and others is kept to a minimum as well as offering other benefits such as improved water quality, providing shade, and minimising stock loss among newborn animals. Money is available, through the Pomahaka Water Care Group, for all farmers in the district to apply for, to help with their riparian fencing and planting to accelerate their mitigation of sediment loss. Nelson’s looking forward to more happening on what he believes is the most pressing environmen- tal issue facing the Pomahaka River. “It’s not ac- ceptable that in the last seven years 200,000 cubic metres have washed down the Pomahaka River. It’s making the Clutha filthy, and it’s happening right in front of us.” For a man who remembers being thoroughly scolded as a child by his grandfather if he put a spade into the riverbank, because he was causing erosion, it’s clearly something he cares about deeply. He’s hoping that with farmers regularly sitting down together with local Iwi, Fish and Game, and the Regional Council, progress will be made in sorting it out. “It’s making the Clutha filthy, and it’s happening right in front of us.” Photos: Sediment traps (top) and direct drilling help mitigate the risk of losing sediment from paddocks into the Pomahaka River.