Farm Environment Trust Calls For Govt Collaboratn

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Farm Environment Trust Calls For Government Collaboration

A Government serious about improving environmental sustainability doesn’t have to look far to find positive role models in the rural sector, says a farming leader.

Jim Cotman, chairman of the New Zealand Farm Environment Award Trust (NZFEA), says organisations like NZFEA have been promoting the advantages of good environmental management for many years.

“We welcome the Government to the plate, but we think it should put its money where its mouth is and support some of the initiatives we have already developed.”

NZFEA administers the Ballance Farm Environment Awards and these awards play a vital role in promoting the positive things farmers are doing.

“The awards are all about finding the best examples of environmental management and showcasing them to the farming community and the wider public.”

A Waerenga dairy farmer, Mr Cotman says farmers are tired of being labelled environmental vandals.

“Most of us care very much about environmental sustainability and we know that good environmental management equates to good business practice. So we would like the Government to work alongside the NZFEA, get to know our philosophies and help us spread this message to the wider New Zealand public and to our international markets.”

Mr Cotman says the agricultural sector has taken a hammering in recent years over issues like nitrate leaching, deforestation and methane emissions from livestock.

“So maybe its time to look at some of the positive environmental effects of agriculture,” he says.

“For example, overseas research tells us that topsoil has immense value as a carbon sink. Practices like no-tillage sowing, along with improved crop varieties and crop fertilisation can increase yields and soil carbon. Other practices such as erosion control, wetland protection and the planting of perennial grasses all help to improve carbon absorption. These are sound management practices and most of our farmers are already using them.”

People who enter the Ballance Farm Environment Awards undergo a peer review process to find those who best understand that good environmental management means “a better bottom line’.

“That’s a message the Government should be pushing at all businesses and if it wants some good role models for others to follow, we can provide them.”

The Ballance Farm Environment Awards currently operate in eight regions throughout the country, but Mr Cotman would like to see every region participating. “So maybe that is another area where the Government could help.”

Winners of the 2007 awards will be announced from late March.

ENDS

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