Freshwater advocacy

Changes brought in by the government through the Essential Freshwater package required all regional councils to review and publicly notify their regional land and water plans by December 2024. Recent changes by the government have pushed this deadline out by 3 years, to December 2027. This work is a major focus for the DairyNZ Regional Policy Team.

The National Policy Statement for Freshwater Management (NPS-FM) 2020, or any new NPS-FM will be applied specifically in each region, and so our responses will vary from region to region. As part of our support for dairy farmers, we are involved in many regional primary sector stakeholder groups where we have an opportunity to give dairy specific feedback to the council.

The NPS-FM requires each regional council to involve their community and tangata whenua when developing the new regional land and water plan for their area. We make sure dairy farmers are aware of and informed about these consultations so they can respond to them. There are many ways dairy farmers can get involved.

We also work with our DairyNZ technical experts to respond to regional council water quality and economic assessments.  DairyNZ is active in other policy areas too - our work with Freshwater Farm Plans, N-cap and wintering regulations are some examples of where we have successfully advocated for changes to regulations and more pragmatic on-farm implementation.