Waikato Plan Change 1 litigation nears conclusion after 12 years
Following twelve years of litigation, a conclusion could be in sight of Waikato’s controversial Plan Change 1 (PC1).
The 2016 annual Effluent Expo at Mystery Creek has been cancelled.
The Waikato Regional Council will instead run catchment-specific field days to promote good effluent management practices.
The council says it will take a fresh approach to helping farmers with effluent management next year, with more catchment field days for providing advice to smaller groups of farmers closer to home.
In recent years, the council has run the annual Effluent Expo at Mystery Creek, an event which has regularly attracted hundreds of farmers and dozens of exhibitors.
The council has decided not to hold an expo at Mystery Creek in 2016 given the dairy payout situation, and it believes its new approach will make things simpler for farmers.
“We feel we can better support farmers in the current economic climate by running effluent management field days in each catchment to help drive overall improvements in effluent systems,” says sustainable agriculture advisor Electra Kalaugher.
Meanwhile, the council also intends having a stand at the Grasslandz agriculture hub in Hamilton in January. “So we won’t be slowing up on offering effluent management advice to farmers even though we’re not going ahead with the Effluent Expo at Mystery Creek,” she says.
Federated Farmers president Wayne Langford says the 2025 Fieldays has been one of more positive he has attended.
A fundraiser dinner held in conjunction with Fieldays raised over $300,000 for the Rural Support Trust.
Recent results from its 2024 financial year has seen global farm machinery player John Deere record a significant slump in the profits of its agricultural division over the last year, with a 64% drop in the last quarter of the year, compared to that of 2023.
An agribusiness, helping to turn a long-standing animal welfare and waste issue into a high-value protein stream for the dairy and red meat sector, has picked up a top innovation award at Fieldays.
The Fieldays Innovation Award winners have been announced with Auckland’s Ruminant Biotech taking out the Prototype Award.
Following twelve years of litigation, a conclusion could be in sight of Waikato’s controversial Plan Change 1 (PC1).
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