Intensive Winter Grazing
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Intensive winter grazing is the practice of grazing livestock on an annual forage crop between 1 May and 30 September each year. The national regulations for intensive winter grazing have been changed and some previous requirements removed. This page has been updated to reflect the changes.
Some regional councils may have additional rules to manage the effects of intensive winter grazing. It is important that you check with your council if you are unsure what is required to ensure your wintering practices comply with the regional rules.
What do the intensive winter grazing regulations cover?
Intensive winter grazing means the grazing of livestock on an annual forage crop at any time in the period that begins 1 May and ends 30 September. Generally, winter crops (where fed in situ) come under the intensive winter grazing regulations which cover:
- Distance from water bodies
- Critical source areas (CSAs)
Requirements you will need to meet
Farmers will need to follow two standards for intensive winter grazing.
Minimum setback for land used for intensive winter grazing
An area of land that is used for intensive winter grazing on a farm must be located at least 5 m away from the bed of any river, lake, wetland, or drain (regardless of whether there is any water in it at the time).
Critical source area
The following requirements apply in relation to any critical source area that is within, or adjacent to, any area of land that is used for intensive winter grazing:
- the critical source area must not be grazed; and
- vegetation must be maintained as ground cover over all of the critical source area; and
- maintaining that vegetation must not include cultivation or harvesting of annual forage crops.
What if I cannot achieve the requirements?
There is no longer any option to gain a resource consent or use a freshwater farm plan if you cannot achieve the requirements. You will have to think about how you can change you wintering practices to protect critical source areas and avoid cultivating an annual forage crop closer than 5 m from any water body.
Expanding or new intensive winter grazing
The restrictions on expansion of intensive winter grazing area or for new activities to gain a resource consent have been removed. You will no longer be required to gain a consent for expanding the intensive winter grazing area or for new areas, unless there are regional rules in place covering this. You are encouraged to check with your regional council before carrying out an expansion or a new wintering activity.
DairyNZ’s response to freshwater policy changes
DairyNZ submitted to the Select Committee process for the Resource Management (Freshwater and Other Matters) Amendment Bill. Our submission focussed on improving the current system for management of freshwater to be more pragmatic and to have enduring policy settings for farming that still deliver environmental improvements.
The two new standards for intensive winter grazing are effects based and have science justifying these practices, which is a good outcome both for farmers and for the environment. The unpractical pugging and resowing conditions were removed from the regulations which is something DairyNZ had advocated for in our submission.