| 101 ON FARM » Chris Dillon Fed Famrers facilitating practical solutions Chris and wife Rochelle grow cereal crops – wheat, peas and barley. Their business also incorporates a grazing operation of 360 dairy heifers and 1000 hoggets, of which they own 250 of the hoggets. Karen Phelps Federated Farmers Southland continues to work hard on behalf of farmers to help facilitate practical solutions that will work for farms, the environment and wider region, says Federated Farmers Southland President Chris Dillon. “There have been a fair few achievements but we are always onto the next challenge,” he says. A current focus is the proposed Southland Water and Land Plan and Federated Farmers Southland is currently awaiting a decision from the Environment Court. For this reason Chris can’t comment specifically apart from to say: “We’ve put a lot of work into it, it’s been a long process.” Another key area of concern is how various policies will play out and their interaction with other related policies such as the Freshwater National Policy Statement. A pilot freshwater farm plan project ran in Southland in late 2022 to test the process at a catchment level. These were joint projects between the relevant regional council, iwi, hapu, and runanga, Ministry for the Environment and MPI. Freshwater farm plan regulations are expected to be ready for rollout in Southland from mid 2023. The requirement for farmers to apply for a consent for wintering also concerns him. Both the proposed Southland Water and Land Plan and the National Environmental Standards for Freshwater have a list of permitted activity criteria for intensive winter grazing. New rules are in place for winter 2023, which means some farmers may need a consent or be granted a deemed permitted activity. “There is a lot of positive stuff farmers have done around wintering grazing. Most have farm environment plans in place, including how they will winter graze and have identified areas that could be risky. We think getting a costly piece of paper won’t help the environment one bit or result in better outcomes.” He suggests a better way would be to include a winter grazing module in the fresh water farm plan. “The regulation is ahead of itself. We don’t want to get tied into a consenting regime when there are better ways of doing it. A fresh water farm plan with a winter grazing module would achieve the same thing.” He says farmers need to be able to take ownership rather than feeling they are getting change forced upon them and favours the carrot rather than the stick approach. “The best way to achieve change is to take people with you. If the regional council doesn’t get it right this winter and starts prosecuting people for minor breaches they’ll find themselves out of favour with everyone. Instead of working together for the right solutions it will break down the relationships we’re building.” Chris grew up on the family farm at Balfour. It was just over 200ha when he started working on the farm in 2000. Land acquisitions have seen the property expand to 960ha. Chris and wife Rochelle grow cereal crops – wheat, peas and barley – totalling 600ha of their land holding. The remaining land is used for a deer operation, which consists of 350 Red deer breeding hinds, and they finish all the progeny. Their business also incorporates a grazing operation of 360 dairy heifers and 1000 hoggets, of which they own 250 of the hoggets. Chris says this has given diversity to their business so they spread their risk and use the land in the way it is best suited. At McCulloch + Partners we are a local business run by local people. We pride ourselves on being friendly, accessible and experienced accounting specialists no matter the industry you’re in. p: 03 218 6179 e: james.harvey@mcp.co.nz w: www.mcp.co.nz James Harvey Partner Proud to support _ubv bѴѴom Chartered Accountants and Business Advisors Contact us to take advantage of our modern approach to accounting and business expertise Fert Wholesale Direct Ltd Farmers, are you concerned about improving your fertiliser efficiency and environmental footprint? Then Fert Wholesale Direct Ltd can help, as we have helped Chris Dillon. The ONE System which through independent trials shows a doubling of response to N. And more recently, our Revolutionary Compound Urea/SOA product where every granule contains both forms of N. Contact Shane Harold on 021 0235 6491 or shane@fertwholesale.co.nz
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