Fonterra’s initiative to check every farm’s effluent management infrastructure, every year, in a move to address non-compliance with regional council dairy effluent rules, has just moved into top gear nationally.

“Our goal is to halve significant non-compliance with council dairy effluent rules within 18 months, then trending to zero,” said Fonterra operations manager, Gary Romano.

The programme piloted in the Waikato from March this year, sees a national rollout this August.

“Going out to every farm across the country, every year as part of the annual Farm Dairy Assessment is the best way to achieve this. We will be working in partnership with our farmers to achieve a marked improvement in compliance.”

Mr Romano said Clean Streams Accord results for 2008/09, which showed national significant non-compliance with council rules now stood at 15% compared to 12% in the prior year, were ‘completely unacceptable’. There were reasons, but no excuses for the decline.

“We will be working in partnership with our farmers to achieve a marked improvement in compliance,” he said.

“Compliance monitoring has been stepped up, so obviously more non-compliance is being identified. We have also seen monitoring extended beyond the farm dairy to other areas such as feed pads and stock underpasses. But while these are contributors for the poor result, they are no excuse.

“Fonterra is determined to get on top of this effluent issue. The New Zealand community expects it, our customers expect it and the vast majority of our complying farmers expect it. We are determined to deliver on those expectations and partnering with our farmers to provide advice and support is the best way to achieve this.

“We will also be looking to regional councils to partner with us as we’re partnering with our farmers so we get year-on-year consistency in monitoring and a shared effort to lift performance. Experience shows the most proactive councils, who are working constructively with farmers, are getting the best results and we’d like to see this mirrored in every region.”

Under the new programme, Fonterra will check every farm’s dairy effluent infrastructure every year as part of the annual Farm Dairy Assessment. Systems found to be at risk of non-compliance will be referred to a Sustainable Dairying Specialist. They will work with affected farmers to develop action plans and a timeframe for implementation. Where there is critical non-compliance, immediate action will be required.

Mr Romano said the ‘every farm, every year’ initiative is a step up in Fonterra’s work with its shareholders.