logo

Freshwater advocacy

Topics

2 min read

DairyNZ’s Environment Policy Team is working to ensure dairy farmer voices are heard as major freshwater policy changes occur.

We advocate for dairy farmers on both national and regional policy changes by providing policy feedback, making formal submissions and keeping dairy farmers informed about how they can get involved in these important processes.

Changes brought in by the government through the Essential Freshwater package require all regional councils to review and publicly notify their regional land and water plans by December 2024. This work is a major focus for the DairyNZ Regional Policy Team. The new National Policy Statement for Freshwater Management (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 expects/obliges each regional council to involve their community 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 have listed some of these here: Regional and national policy - DairyNZ 

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. 

Submissions:

National:

Regional:

Last updated: Aug 2023
Share: