Andrew Hoggard: Associate Environment Minister on the Government easing Freshwater Farm Plan rules
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What new changes are being made to Freshwater Farm Planning rules?
RMA reform coming to farms and freshwater treatment, certification and audits basically going to be limited now to higher risk activities, so your dairy, your feedlots, your commercial veggies. Uh comes out of concern over unnecessary cost and complexity. Andrew Hoggard is the Associate Minister for the Environment and is with us. Andrew, very good morning. Of all the things I do as a farmer, where does this sit in terms of important cost and you know making me furious?
Uh, it should hopefully not make you furious any more if you're a farmer. This should be fairly straightforward and for the majority of those high risk farmers you talked about. um needing the certification and auditing, we've got this industry assurance pathway where Many like all of your dairy farmers already have to do farm plans uh through their dairy processes.
How will certification and audits be limited to high‑risk farm activities?
They get audited by third party auditors. So we will be having a system where we can recognise those plans so you don't have to do Do uh two plans 'cause uh there's one thing I hate more than um anything else being a firmer is duplication. And particularly when it comes to
paperwork. What's the big win? The red tape or the lack of cost or lowering the cost?
Uh well lowering the cost and making them fit for purpose and focused on what they need to be focused on. Um, you know, there was number of things where it was overspect and asking, you know, too much and there was too much detail. I
Why did Andrew Hoggard use himself as a ‘guinea‑pig’ for the new farm plan?
went through the process, um, looking at okay, let's use myself as a guinea pig. and tried to develop one for myself. Uh got to what was Then the, you know, catchment context, which was fifteen pages of waffle that I had to read through that was just ridiculous. Uh, didn't tell me anything that I needed to know. You know, it was like, tell me what the problem is we're trying to solve in my river and then I can work out what are the things I can do on my farm to do that. Um, it didn't have any of that. So tidying up that stuff, um, the certifiers previously they had to go on these long winded courses and Learn all sorts of things like the tree of whiteangy.
What problems did the 15‑page catch‑ment context document cause for farmers?
Um so we removed some of that stuff. Uh now they're just gonna know about farming. Um
Did this well that's good. Did this vary from council to council, region to region, sector to sector or not?
No, the well, what was originally set was the national system and so this is the national system we're working on. Various regional councils were coming up with their own even more complex systems, so you'll see it in the RN the all the changes we're doing in Parliament will be saying, you know, this is the plan that farmers need to do. Um we won't be allowing any duplication from councils to come up with more costly and complex um plans. Um so yeah, we're tidying up to make sure it's
How will the new national system prevent duplicated, costly council plans?
clear, practical, does the job, identifies the risks on farm. creates the action plan for the farmer to start working on those risks. And um yeah, make life people's lives a bit easier and also improve the environment.
Hallelujah. Praise the Lord. Well done. Appreciate it. Andrew Hoggard, Associate Minister of the Environment.
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Chapters
5 chapters
1
What new changes are being made to Freshwater Farm Planning rules?
0:00–0:43
2
How will certification and audits be limited to high‑risk farm activities?
0:43–1:15
3
Why did Andrew Hoggard use himself as a ‘guinea‑pig’ for the new farm plan?
1:15–1:51
4
What problems did the 15‑page catch‑ment context document cause for farmers?
1:51–2:35
5
How will the new national system prevent duplicated, costly council plans?
2:35–3:00
Speakers
2 identifiedMore from The Mike Hosking Breakfast
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