Ground rules for fertiliser
Released 06 Aug 2010
Ann Thompson, Federated Farmers policy advisor
Good gardeners know the advantage of using fertiliser on their flowerbeds, vegetable gardens and around fruit trees. Farmers also know the qualities of fertiliser on their farm for growing grass and producing great pasture.
Fertiliser can come in a variety of packaging; in bags of sheep pellets from garden centres, from roadside stalls selling bagged horse manure or in a collection area from livestock on a farm for farm use. Many people can relate to the idea of fertiliser. Its main aim is to help the soil stay fertile to enable good plant growth.
Federated Farmers know that farmers strive to use best management practices. They look after their calves because they know that well-fed calves become terrific cows. They use best management practices to keep their cows healthy because happy cows produce a high milk yield and it's the right thing to do.
In the same way, farmers need to use best management practices when dealing with their fertiliser systems. They recognise the fertiliser right on their doorsteps, the recycled nutrients that can be spread on their pasture. This fertiliser is the very effluent they store and spread when the conditions are right for optimum grass growth.
Times have changed and farmers have long woken up to the fact that some practices of the past have caused negative effects on our environment.
DairyNZ is developing standards and a Code of Practice for effluent system design which will help ensure quality and consistency with the equipment farmers buy in good faith. Federated Farmers is part of the group looking at the Code of Practice to make sure it works and fully advocates for more tools that help farmers make the right choices with effluent and fertilizer use.
Farmers are environmentalists. That is why they work the land. They love the outdoors, they tend to be self-sufficient and recycling is a common objective. Their fertiliser programmes are world class. In New Zealand, farming is pasture-based and we have one of the highest rates of grass-fed stock in the Western World.
