Land and Environment Planning toolkit

The LEP toolkit was designed to be a more practical approach for farmers and so was developed by a mixed group of parties, consisting of seven farmers and four Regional Council representatives, and later on, industry and scientific experts. The LEP toolkit assesses the farm’s resources to help farmers better understand land and environmental issues present on their farm. As each farm is unique in terms of landscape, natural resources, farm practice and economics, no two farms are alike. Therefore, there is no single framework that can be used to address land and environmental issues across New Zealand. As a result, the LEP can be tailored to an individual farming situation depending on the level of inquiry required.

There are three distinct levels in the LEP toolkit that require different information input and farmer involvement (Table 2.6). Level 1 is an introduction to the issues and can be achieved using a farm mapping method (Option 1a) or by completing a risk assessment of the farm and land resources (Option 1b). Level 2 is a more in depth analysis of the farm and its resources. The information acquired is used to identify the different land management units (LMU) present on the farm. Level 3 is a comprehensive farm plan that involves not just the farmer but also input from land management experts. The resulting report consists of a stock-take of the farm’s resources, a strengths and weaknesses, opportunities and threats (SWOT) analysis of these resources, a nutrient budget, and a ‘plan’ outlining how these issues will be managed. Level 3 also contains a business assessment of the farm’s status and so, has the ability to provide an analysis for the whole farm business enterprise. Access to

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any level of LEP can help farmers identify areas of land where the resources are not currently fully utilised and production opportunities are being lost and alternatively, environmental issues that need to be addressed.

Table 2.6 Brief description of what is required at each level of the LEP toolkit.

Level Standards Farmer involvement Examples

Level 1 Standards based on local standards (discharges, fertiliser inputs etc.)

Farmer driven- Largely ‘do it yourself’

Property stocktaking, Environment Management Plans and Farm shelter Plans

Level 2

Standards based on Regional Council guidelines

Farmer driven but qualified specialist input recommended but is not required

Soils underpinning

business success (SUBS) Land Management Plans (Horizons Regional Council) and the Green Project Plans (no longer in use) Level 3 Standards based on Regional Council guidelines and National standards

Farmer driven but qualified specialist input is required

Sustainable land use initiative (SLUI) Whole Farm Plan and

Comprehensive Whole Farm Plan both developed by Horizons Regional Council

Note: For a full description see www.beeflambnz.com

Each of the three levels (1, 2 and 3) contains three pieces of information that vary in the intensity of inquiry depending on the level:

1. A stock take of the farm’s natural resources including: land, soil and water resources

2. A detailed assessment of the SWOT posed by these resources 3. An action plan stating:

-What actions are going to be undertaken? -Where the actions will be focused?

-What time frame will the actions be implemented?

There are several examples of LEP toolkit (Level 1, 2 or 3) uptake and use by Industry and Regional Councils: Shade and shelter plans, FarmIQ and WFP.

Farm Shade and Shelter Plans are an example of the use of LEP Level 1 – mapping exercise. Many Regional Councils (Waikato Regional Council, Horizons Regional Council, and Southland Regional Council etc.) have guidelines and self-help booklets on how to plant shade and shelter for a farm. Waikato Regional Council’s “Trees on Farms” guidebook gives an outline to the planning process for planting trees for shade and shelter that involves drawing a proposed planting plan for the farm taking into consideration factors such as soil drainage, and specific site and landscape influences (Waikato Regional Council, 2002).

45 Silver Fern Farms is one of New Zealand’s biggest red meat exporters formed in 1948 as Primary Producers Co-operative Society (PPCS). The company decided to rebrand in 2008 to the present Silver Fern Farms to reflect the shift in focus from production- based strategies to market-led strategies. The Silver Fern Farms have developed their brand over the last few years to bring added value to their end product through market strategies and promoting the idea of “pasture to plate” labelling. A pilot scheme FARMIQ has been running for the last two years, and combines farmers with their business manager and a working group of specialists to highlight production opportunities at minimal cost to the environment (LEP - Level 2). The FARMIQ scheme also has a database that allows the participating farmers to analyse and benchmark their performance against themselves and their peers over a series of inputs and outputs (Paterson, 2012). The idea behind FARMIQ scheme is that by ensuring effective and informed decision-making around the environmental and production issues will result in an end product that is more closely aligned with market place requirements and hence have access to niche markets (EU). At present FarmIQ has an uptake among farmers with around 400 or so signed up (Paterson, 2012).

Horizons’ WFP is an example of the applicability of Level 3 of the LEP toolkit. The Horizons’ WFP was first developed by SLUI following the 2004 Manawatu floods, to protect and future-proof the region’s hill country assets from future storm events. The purpose of the plan is to identify farm-specific opportunities, focusing primarily on resource conservation (land, water, vegetation) and sediment management, but also extends into sustainable business development, in recognition that in a farm system the environment and farm business cannot be treated separately (Mackay, 2008). The original goal for the Regional Council was to achieve 1,500 plans over the next 10 years, with half of these plans done on farms defined as in the most at risk locations (priority catchments). To date approximately 400 plans have been completed covering a total of >300,000 ha of the region (A. Mackay Personal communication 12th March, 2013).