Editorial - Getting elephants across mountains

The new ‘Sustainable Dairying Water Accord’ has been a mammoth job, demanding the best technical, managerial and political skills. Huge credit to those who’ve brought it to birth after “a long time in gestation”, as Dairy Companies Association chief executive Simon Tucker put it. They worked with DairyNZ in this two-way partnership and Federated Farmers has signed to it as a friend. Councils are also part of the caravan – it’s ‘collaborative’, in the best spirit of the Land and Water Forum. Even the Greens and Forest and Bird haven’t been as churlish about it as they might have been.

Now to keep this expedition on track. Since every party to the accord will have its own agenda – notwithstanding agreement on the common cause – there will need to be some prodding to keep the ‘herd’ in line. 

Several renegade beasts could cause panic at a bluff, putting at risk the whole: first, the few chain-dragging dairymen who just will not clean up; second, the empire-builder who bites off more than he can chew, intending to chew like mad, but choking -- he borrows too much, overstocks his land and pushes his staff to the edge; third, the lunatic on the ‘greenies’ fringe who won’t be satisfied until all the humans have been flushed out of New Zealand and the countryside returned to its primeval state. This latter character seems harmless, if nutty, but if he gets loose with a video camera when either a chain-dragger or an empire-builder has a meltdown with his effluent system, the dairy industry could face a major irritant.  

What sort of irritant? A demand – which the likes of the Green Party and Forest and Bird would have to support – for compulsory sanctions against dairy farmers whose systems don’t meet the standards of the new accord. And there’s another elephant in the room, albeit still a calf: somewhere, somebody will be plotting to require dairy farmers to be licensed to farm. 

So the onus is on the dairy industry’s regulars to keep the renegades in check, reminding them they too are responsible for helping New Zealand’s dairy industry to be as good as it deserves to be, albeit a little less demanding of finite resources – including people.