One of the lessons I learnt early in my farming career was the need to be well informed on regulations that directly impact us as farmers.

I was 17 years old when ecologists came to survey our Canterbury farm in 1983. Despite receiving the standard ‘the survey information would be public information ‘ and warnings from a neighbour, our family agreed to the survey.

In 1999 I found myself defending our family in the Environment Court as other parties used the survey information to try to capture as much of our land as possible under Significant Natural Area (SNA) classification.

It wasn’t until West Coast Federated Farmers sent us a detailed advisory in 2001 that we fully understood the implications of allowing surveys and having SNAs on our land.

District and Regional councils are required to implement government regulations. When it comes to regulations and classifications like SNAs, Landscapes, and cultural sites councils are loathe to reveal the full implications for fear of upsetting their constituents and making their planning process more difficult.

Thus, most farmers remain unaware of the implications of many of the regulations being rolled out by the government and councils.

To make matters worse we now find ourselves in the situation where even our national farming advocacy groups are not providing farmers full and accurate information.

Emissions pricing a case in point.

Because our farming groups are in the tent with the government and agreed to help design an emissions tax it compromises their independence as an advocacy voice.

They are reluctant to tell the full story because of concerns it may reflect poorly on them and what they have agreed to.

He Waka Eke Noa (HWEN) has become a slick marketing campaign rather than genuine consultation with farmers. HWENs campaign focused on promoting why the ETS was so bad and downplayed or ignored the downsides of their own option.

Particularly disappointing is how HWEN and the industry groups have misled over sequestration credits as they became desperate to gain farmer support for HWEN.

Farmers can no longer trust our farming advocate groups to provide us with the truth about policies and regulations, particularly those our farming groups have agreed to or are helping the government implement.

The main ones are emissions pricing, sequestration credits, biodiversity legislation including SNAs, implications of allowing surveys on your land, and Freshwater Farm Plans. Farmers are completely in the dark over the governments mandated farm plans including the public information implications.

Over the next few months, we will be putting articles and videos together that provide farmers with information about these policies and regulations.

Farmers are contacting us to requesting this information and we welcome feedback on other regulations and policies to be added to the list.

If farming groups, councils, and the government were doing their job properly we wouldn’t have to be doing this.

Jamie McFadden

Groundswell NZ environmental spokesperson