| 7 nzdairy Anita Hendriks with staff members at milking. DAIRY PEOPLE » Ad & Anita Hendriks Legislation is ‘not yet well defined’ Russell Fredric Geraldine dairy farmer and Federated Farmers South Canterbury dairy chair representative Ad Hendriks finds it difficult to isolate the most pressing issue for himself and other farmers. “Well, there’s so many,” he says. “One is, He Waka Eke Noa is not in a happy camp at the moment. I think a lot of the legislation we have to deal with, the biggest upset is that farmers just don’t get listened to in any of the legislative processes. “The legislation process itself, it’s not only a farmer thing, it’s now evident that it happens with all professions. The Government just has their own agenda, they push it through and don’t care what you say and why you say it, and they put out a consulting process but they don’t do anything with information obviously. “That’s more of an issue than the legislation itself.” Ad cites an example that, under winter grazing rules it was originally proposed crops had to be sown by a set date. However, after a strong backlash this was subsequently amended to require grazed annual forage crop paddocks to be re-sown as soon as conditions allowed. Ad says under the freshwater rules there would be three options for winterfeed crops: Firstly, permitted activity (if there was no risk to water), Secondly, winter grazing management (manageable risks) and thirdly the need to obtain consent in special circumstances. “The winter grazing plan templates, as in option two to be provided by the government, are not ready yet, which leaves farmers only the consent process if not a permitted activity. “As this law has been passed into law, some farmers must have a consent but the regional councils have not enough staff to deal with all these applications, while the farmer is under time pressure to put these winter crops in the ground. Farmers are between a rock and a hard place.” Ad’s 250 hectare, 800 cow farm is close to Geraldine and is highly visible to the public, including tourists. This, and having a cycle track also running through part of the farm further puts the property under the microscope, with the consequence of complaints, which have proven unfounded, having been made to various agencies, Ad says. He is committed to complying with winter grazing rules, but some aspects of legislation are not yet well defined, he says. “The Government hasn’t got its act together, so they haven’t got anything in place yet, so you can’t go for a farm or a winter management plan because they didn’t have the procedures in place to design a plan and what it needs to look like. “Here we are, planting our winter feed and you’re not even knowing if you are allowed to use it next winter if you’re on the wrong slope or close to some water stores. It’s not really good enough.” There is also a problem with local authorities not having enough staff to process the consents, which puts farmers in a position of needing to plant winter crop and not knowing if they are farming within the law, Ad says. Despite these concerns, there are some things he is perfectly positive about. As a Fonterra supplier he is pleased with how the company is tracking following its major reset in 2018 to focus on its core business, including returns to its farmer shareholders, to turn around its balance sheet, which included the sale of some substantial New Zealand and overseas assets. “I think it was a wise decision to concentrate on New Zealand milk; it’s great to want to be the biggest in the world, but in reality, you need to be the best in the world.” He also has good news on the farm; two seasons ago he was facing a perplexingly high empty rate of 20% in the herd, which he says was unsustainable, but has managed to turn this around to 8%. “We concentrated on several things, we had a closer look at cow condition and shied a little bit away from fodder beet and going back to kale, so hopefully this year we will see more improvement there.” Proud to support Raukapuka Farms Mainfert is proud to be a long term nutrient partner to Ad and Anita Hendriks WJ Stack Contracting For all your ag contractingneeds 0274 173 160 willstack05@gmail.com wj stack contracting
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