Monitoring by Waikato Regional Council has found the number of significantly non-compliant dairy farms in the region has halved on the previous year.

It’s a result that has been applauded by the council who says it reflects the industry’s commitment to stepping up to address environmental issues.

“We call it as we see it, and we are very happy to say that our farm inspections over the last year show a significant drop in non-compliance relating to dairy effluent management in the Waikato,” said council Regional Compliance Manager Patrick Lynch.

“Over the 2020/21 financial year our Rural Compliance Team monitored a total of 1172 farms – of these, 81 or just 7 per cent were found to be significantly non-compliant.

“In the previous year, our monitoring was impacted by COVID-19, but we still managed to inspect 820 farms and found 102, or 12 per cent, had significant compliance issues.

“This year’s results clearly indicate a real improvement, and we would like to acknowledge all of the hard work being carried out across the dairy sector to achieve this,” Mr Lynch said. “The risk to the environment has undoubtedly been greatly reduced on individual farms by the investment in effluent infrastructure.”

Waikato Regional Council Chair, Russ Rimmington, acknowledged the pleasing result. “This is a good news story and reflects what can be achieved when the council and industry work closely together on important environmental issues.”

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