The government’s planned gigantic irrigation network will fuel an explosion in dairy farm numbers and New Zealand’s waterways will pay the price, says Fish and Game.
This week Agriculture Minister David Carter announced the government intends to help fund a $435 million agricultural irrigation package which will see up to 340,000ha more farmland irrigated.
Fish and Game chief executive Bryce Johnson says the planned irrigation schemes are designed to encourage intensive dairy farming and than that we can expect to see a million more dairy cows in the country.
“David Carter is talking about another 340,000ha of potentially irrigable land. Well the reality is, say you work on the basis of 3 cows per hectare on a hectare, in an intensive dairy farm, you’ve just got to do the figures, that comes to a million cows.
"So that’s the potential risk that’s been contemplated here. And let’s face it given that diary farming is the big overseas exporter earner for the country, that’s where I’m sure the government would like a lot of that irrigated land to go.”
Mr Johnson says Fish and Game’s biggest problem with the scheme is that the government hasn’t factored into its thinking a way to deal with the inevitable increase in pollution that will come with the growth in intensive dairy farms.
“You know that when you get more dairy farming in New Zealand, as we know from all the water quality studies in New Zealand, you get real problems with pollution.
"Dewatering the rivers for irrigation and then, of course, those rivers are less able to cope with the increased pollution that comes back into them, so that’s our concern. It’s a really one sided package.”
As Country99 TV reported yesterday Federated Farmers is ecstatic with the government’s plans, however other groups have questioned why tax payers should be funding water schemes for private and hugely profitable businesses.
The Malvern Hills Protection Society, which is involved in the Canterbury water debate, says the government’s irrigation network is simply an agribusiness bailout.
