A consortium of groups across a variety of sectors has created an alternative plan to get New Zealand's rivers back up to scratch after what they say is lack of urgency on the issue by the Government.

The Freshwater Rescue Plan was launched in Wellington on Thursday and is aimed at countering the Government's Clean Water Package which aimed to have 90 percent of the country's rivers and lakes swimmable by 2040.

Continue to full article on Newshub   |  June 8,  2017   |||

Emirates has celebrated World Environment Day by showcasing an environmentally friendly aircraft cleaning technique that has enabled the airline to save millions of litres of water every year.

Emirates uses the ‘aircraft drywash’ technique to clean its aircraft. As indicated by the name, little or no water is involved in cleaning the aircraft, which is in contrast to conventional methods of aircraft cleaning which typically use thousands of litres of water per wash.

During the course of every flight, an aircraft accumulates dust and grime on its external surface. In addition to making the aircraft look dirty and less appealing, the dirt that accumulates on the aircraft surface also increases the fuel it consumes by making the aircraft heavier and less aerodynamic.

Traditionally aircraft are cleaned by using highly pressurised water between four to five times every year. However, on an average this technique uses more than 11,300 litres of water to clean one Airbus A380 aircraft and more than 9,500 litres of water to clean a Boeing 777 aircraft every time.

Since early 2016 Emirates has been using an aircraft drywash technique to clean its fleet of over 250 aircraft, including the A380s that serve New Zealand five times daily.

In this technique, a liquid cleaning product is first applied manually to the entire external surface of the aircraft. Clean microfibre fabric is then used to remove the cleaning product which has dried to a film, removing the dirt along with it and leaving the aircraft clean and polished. The aircraft is left with a fine protective film allowing the painted surface to retain a longer gloss and shine. It takes a crew of 15 staff about 12 hours to clean an A380 and about nine hours to clean a Boeing 777 aircraft.

Watch a video of an Emirates Airbus A380 undergoing a drywash at the Emirates Engineering hangar in Dubai.

There are multiple advantages to using the drywash technique. The first is that there is little use of water to clean the aircraft. When consolidated over its fleet of 260 aircraft, Emirates saves over 11 million litres of water every year. Additionally the waterless aircraft wash technique ensures that the aircraft remains cleaner for a longer period of time thereby reducing the number of times the aircraft has to be washed to about three times a year, and also reducing the aircraft’s fuel consumption because of less accumulation of dirt.

Operationally, it is possible for other maintenance work to be carried out on the aircraft in parallel during a dry wash which is not possible when the aircraft is being washed with water due to the sensitivity of instruments to water.

Emirates is committed to being an environmentally responsible airline and operates one of the world’s youngest and most fuel efficient fleet of aircraft. In addition to the adopting drywashing for its aircraft, the airline has adopted a number of other energy efficiency initiatives across its operations.

Engineering and MaintenanceEmirates uses an innovative foam wash technique for cleaning aircraft engines that allows the airline to save about 200 tonnes of carbon dioxide emissions per year across its fleet. Other initiatives include the installation of a one megawatt array of solar photo voltaic panels at the state of the art Emirates Engine Maintenance Centre in Dubai. The panels generate over 1,800 megawatt-hours of electricity every year, helping save around 800 tonnes in carbon dioxide emissions. Emirates Engineering has also installed energy saving LED lights triggered by motion sensors substantially reducing electricity consumption.

Inflight ProductsEmirates has introduced sustainable blankets produced from 100% recycled plastic bottles. Using patented ecoTHREAD™ technology, each blanket is made from 28 recycled plastic bottles. It is estimated that by the end of 2019, Emirates ecoTHREAD™ blankets would have rescued 88 million plastic bottles from landfills.

A Greener TomorrowThrough its ‘A Greener Tomorrow’ programme, Emirates has provided funding to non-profit organisations across the world who work to conserve and safeguard their local environments. Funds for the initiative are raised entirely through the Emirates Group’s internal recycling programmes. For more information, read the Emirates Group Environmental Report 2016-17 here.

| A press release from Emirates  ||  June 6, 2017   |||

Resene has recycled over three million paint containers and found innovative uses for leftover paint, with its PaintWise scheme, Associate Environment Minister Scott Simpson announced today at Resene’s factory in Lower Hutt.

“Often consumers buy more paint than they need for a project and the leftover paint is stored in sheds and cupboards, or is taken to the local landfill for disposal. Resene PaintWise provides New Zealanders with an environmentally responsible way of disposing of their waste paint,” Mr Simpson says.

Resene PaintWise accepts all brands of paint and paint containers and finds alternative uses for them. These include recycling paint in concrete manufacture, recycling paint containers, donating good quality paint to community group projects and using waste paint to cover graffiti. Over 250,000 litres has been donated to communities to cover graffiti which equals over two million square metres of graffiti to be covered with the help of the scheme so far.

“It’s great to see New Zealand business taking up the challenge of reducing their products’ environmental impacts. Resene PaintWise was the first whole-life-cycle paint recycling programme in the world.”

“Resene is an excellent example of an organisation taking responsibility for waste in its industry. I encourage other organisations and industries to get accredited so they too can receive the economic and environmental benefits of product stewardship.”

“Under the Waste Minimisation Act, I can accredit product stewardship schemes that meet the criteria for reducing waste and environmental harm. A product stewardship scheme will only be accredited after it has been thoroughly assessed to ensure accreditation criteria have been met. In turn, accredited schemes have to report annually me on their objectives and targets.”

For more information about product stewardship see http://www.mfe.govt.nz/waste/product-stewardship

For more information about Resene PaintWise and where to recycle paint and paint containers see http://www.resene.co.nz/paintwise.php

After a massive explosion of algae growth in China’s Lake Taihu a decade ago left more than two million people in the area temporarily without safe drinking water, the government started spending hundreds of millions of dollars a year to try to solve the algae problem. One part of the solution: working with a company that harvests algae from the lake before it grows out of control, and turns it into a flexible, rubbery material that is now being made into shoes.

Vivobarefoot’s water-resistant Ultra III shoes are usually made from a petroleum-based version of the same material, ethylene-vinyl acetate (EVA). But a version that will launch in July is made from a blend of algae and EVA, instead. To get enough algae to make one pair means cleaning 57 gallons of water, which are then returned to the lake.

Continue to the full article by Adele Peters in Fast Company |  May 30,  2017   |||

When a litre of water cost more than a litre of petrol, the value of every day commodities is really concerning when water is the alexia of all life.

When we are constantly being told that the wars of the future will not be about oil, but water, we as New Zealanders need to get out Act together to protect one of our most assets.

In HB we have, a self-generating water bonanza laying under our very feet and all we are doing is arguing about the rights and wrongs of its ownership and management.

To the people of HB, we have a future opportunity, but if only we can take the affirmative and positive action to do something about it.

It is often claimed that there is lack of water or is this a myth? Do we really have a water problem in HB or do we have a management problem?

As a citizen and rate payer of Hawkes Bay for many years, I believe the main reason for the assumed water quality, storage problems of Hasting’s is not because we have a shortage, not because we have so called young water but due to mismanagement of this resource. This has been proven from the recent report of the Havelock North debacle. The over allocation of resource consents to take water from the sub and confined aquafer is a real concern but why is there no water shortage in Napier?

To solve this problem or as it is now being promoted, that there is a lack of understanding about our water. We were to have a hui, now it’s a symposium. My question is why, when we have the information, the skills and the professional expertise in the HB Regional Council.

For years, the qualified and professional staff of the HBRC have researched and documented and tested of our water resource, and produced the reports like the “Groundwater level changes in the Heretaunga and Ruataniwha Basins from 1994-2014” in 2015 (HBRC Report No. RM15-01-4738.) as is required of them with the mandate under the Resource Management Act.

I suggest you go to the HBRC web site and read this and a one page summary called “Understanding our Aquifer” Both publications are factual, informative and interesting and will perhaps dispel the myth of the so-called water quality and shortage misunderstanding.

The chairman of the HBRC, Rex Graham, is a member of the trio who called for this hui/symposium. When all the above information is freely available, why did he get the facts instead of becoming one on the three musketeers. His involvement is tantamount to nothing more than a vote of no confidence in the very people he has been elected to and paid to lead, the employees of the HBRC? Does he not have the confidence in their abilities to provide the answers instead of out of town experts at a symposium? What a waste of rate payer’s money and time. If this being the case should he not resign as the chairman?

There has been a lot of comment about the Chinese bottling plant at the Tomoana site. What is not so well known is that this is also 50% owned by a HB family but very little has said about the fact that Heinz Watties is owned by Americans, the Pan Pac Mill by the Japanese, many of the grape growing companies are owned by off shore interests or that the Russian multi-millionaire now owns the Waiwera springs and exports this water resource.

Add to this the plans that are in place by corporate investors to take water from the George river on fringe of Fiordland, to pipe it 12 kilometres and to then load it onto ships in bulk, off shore for export. This is commercially reality and while our NZ laws allow it to happen, it will continue to happen.

The fresh water supplies of England are now not owned by the English, but by the German and the French conglomerates who sub lease and the right to fish in the rivers.Could this happen to NZ? Have we as NZers missed the boat? We will, if action is not taken sooner than later. If we don’t get this sorted quickly, we are in danger of going the same way as England, we will lose control of one of our most valuable resources, water, something that most of us take for granted.

Over the last 20 years I have watched and observed the water debate, so here is a lay man’s take on this issue.

It’s been interesting to watch and read about the Dam issue, the sorrow and multimillion dollar debacle in Havelock north, the sprinkler bans and then to read about the shortage of water in Tikokino and Onga Onga.

To answer this question of water shortage and its quality, let’s start with the end in mind in Hawke Bay and then take a journey from the ranges back to Hawke Bay. There are approximately 43 fresh water springs releasing millions of litres of fresh water into Hawk Bay every day.

This is caused as is a direct result of the hydrostatic pressure (caused by the pressure of the millions of litres of water the lay directly beneath the Ruahine ranges and under the Heretaunga plains in the confined aquifer.

If we journey to the Ruataniwha plains along highway 50 to the Tikokino area, then up the Wakarara road towards the site where the controversial storage dam was to be build, you will see numerous large boom irrigators and wells to feed them.

If there is such a water shortage in this area, why are dairy farmers sinking large bores to run these beasts. Why was an application made to allow 10-12 additional bores to be sunk when there was controversy raging over the need for the dam to store water? Beats me

A number of years ago the HBRC drilled three large bores on the plains to test the age, volume and quality of water. One of these was in the Tikokino, Onga Onga area. The volume of water from this well was so great that it formed its own stream. The Central Hawkes Bay district council (CHGDC) was offered this water this was rejected and the bore was capped. Why then is there a shortage of water in the Tikokino Onga Onga town ships when this bore is available, again, the logic beats me.

During the early 1970s oil exploration and testing was being carried out on the Heretaunga plains. A drilling rig was set up just north of Kereru in the small Poporangi basin. The following was described to me by a neighbour who visited the drilling operation and was told this information by the drilling supervisor.

He explained that data from the seismic tests they had carried out, had identified that there were enormous caverns or cisterns holding trillions of litres of water under the Ruahine ranges. To further verify this that while drilling they had gone down through hundreds of feet of fresh water.

This was further verified by another independent operator who was engaged by a local grape growing company on highway 50 area to identify the best location for a fresh water bore for their business.

Fact or fiction, I don’t think so.

Is this the reason that the Heretaunga plains are full of fresh water springs in places like, the Swamp road area, Ohiti, Ferhill, Raukawa, Waiohiki and the huge rouge bore in Twyford plus others that are running 24/7 and pouring out millions of litres of water that runs into our local rivers.If you venture up into the Laurence road at the foot of the Kaweka ranges, on the side of the road there is 200 millimetre hole in the side of a bank that runs water 24/7 to feed a small lake.

An Esk valley farmer now generates power from his natural spring and feeds the surplus power into the national grid.

I lived in Meeanee for many years and I had a 50 millimetre (2 inch) on the back lawn. When this was fully turned on, it had and still can shoot a horizontal jet of solid water over 3 meters. This was under its own hydrostatic pressure with no assistance from a pump. Do we have a water shortage problem?

In 1973, I worked at the old Tomoana meat plant. William Nelson did not establish the plant there because it was close to the railway line, it was because of the availability of water.

In January/ February 1973/4, the Hasting City council installed a new sewer pipe from the city to East Clive. When working alongside the Tomoana site the contractors had to sink dozens of 100 mm (4 inch) pipes at 2 meter intervals just to draw off the water to get the pipe into the trench because of the high-water table. Remember, this was February, in the middle of the hottest and driest month of the year in Hawkes Bay. Watties, Birdseye, Fropax peas, Tomoana and Whakatu works, Tuckers Wool scour the Fertilizer works and other wet industries were in full production as well as Clive drawing water for its domestic use. Many of the companies above, don’t exist today.

So, what’s changed? Apart from Progressive Meats and tanneries near the old Tomoana and Whakatu, works there are few wet industries. Add to this the controversial water bottling plant that only takes 0.12% of the total Heretaunga aquifer resource, the question has to be asked, where is all surplus the water going?

This can be partly answered by walking the Ngaroaroa river from the cable at Whana Whana to Maraekakaho on highway 50. If you look carefully you will see all the consented large bores tucked away on river flats that are drawing water for the corporate dairy farms, cropping, sheep farms, grapes etc. It must also be remembered that a large % of the Ngaroaroa water still disappears underground between Maraekakaho and Fernhill.

So how is our water replenished? According to the HBRC information, (available on line) 19.7 billion cubic meters of rain falls in HB each year. Half of this goes straight out to sea and the rest moves through the HB aquifers, that’s nearly 10 billion cubic meters of water that is available for our use. So, do we have a shortage of clean fresh water? We don’t. What we do have is the over allocation and questionable management practices of this precious resource, Hawkes Bays liquid gold?

So, what can or should we do about it?

   1.   All councils to undertake a complete review of the water issue and the HBRC be endorsed to manage the resource as they are mandated to do so.

   2 .  If you can’t beat em, join em. Let’s pick up on the comment by Napier MP Stuart Nash on the 23rd of April last year when he said that over the next 11 years, private businesses can extract more than 40 million cubic litres of water. He floated the idea of charging a premium of 2c a litre. If this happened, Hawke's Bay could make more than $800 million over that time. With this income potential is mind blowing for the future of Hawkes Bay. Why don’t all HB councils combine and form their own water exporting business, this will allow the people of HB to capitalise on its liquid gold for the prosperity of the Bay. We don’t want to become like the UK or wake one morning and find it’s too late.

Locate the plant on the old Hill Country Meat plant site at Awatoto where wells already in place. Why this site, because it’s at the end of the Heretaunga confined aquifer flow and as I said earlier, there are 43 plus fresh water springs that are running freely out at sea.This would have a negative environmental impact but the huge direct and indirect rewards for the prosperity and future for all the people of Hawkes Bay.

Texas has oil, we have water that now costs more per litre than petrol, think about it.

Gordon AndersonNapier  26 May 2017

DairyNZ is hailing the fact that 97 percent of dairy cattle are now fenced off from waterways, but its latest Water Accord report reveals a significant worsening of reported nutrient leaching in the areas with the biggest new conversions, reports Lynn Grieveson on NewsroomPro

DairyNZ described the fencing on waterways as going from Cape Reinga to Bluff 12 times, and Primary Industries Minister Nathan Guy had it going to Chicago and back - but they both agreed the 26,197 kilometres of fencing stopping cattle from getting into streams, rivers and lakes was something to celebrate.

And while farmers are congratulating themselves on the fencing achievement, critics say it is still not enough.    Continue to read the  full article here on Newsroom

| A Newsroom release  || May 16, 2017   |||

Two reports released today by NIWA and the Ministry for the Environment on the technical background to the Clean Water proposals will help inform input into the plans to clean up New Zealand waterways, Environment Minister Dr Nick Smith says.

“The Clean Water plan is very ambitious in nationally grading our rivers and lakes for water quality for recreation and requiring 90 per cent to be swimmable by 2040. This has never been done before in New Zealand or overseas, but it is an important step in addressing our water quality issues.

“The grading system has generated significant debate and these reports provide more information on how the grading system compares internationally and the level of precaution they are based on.

“These reports show that the only other jurisdiction that attempts to grade waterways for swimming is Europe. Their grades of excellent, good and sufficient match the New Zealand grades of excellent, good and fair, although the New Zealand proposals for the bottom fair category are more cautious. This analysis shows that if New Zealand adopted the European grading, more rivers would be deemed swimmable.

“The report also notes that the USEPA criteria of waters either being swimmable or not is a bit more cautious, but notes that this has not been applied across all states in the US and requires a small sample size of four, rather than the 100 in the New Zealand proposal.

“These reports also provide more detailed information on the levels of risk from swimming in the different grades of rivers and lakes. The average infection risk when a person makes no assessment of the state of the waterway before swimming is rated at 1 per cent for the blue category, 2.4 per cent for the green category and 3.1 per cent for the yellow category. If a person follows the advice of not swimming during high flows, determined as three times normal flows, the risks drop to 0.3 per cent for blue, 1.3 per cent for green and 2.0 for yellow.

“These reports also confirm that the changes to the National Policy Statement in moving from a wadeable standard of a median 1000 E. coli/100ml to swimmable with a median of 130 E.coli/100ml for 90 per cent of waterways provides for a significant improvement in the microbiological water quality in our waterways.

“The gradings of waterways into different categories for swimmability inevitably involves choosing some arbitrary thresholds. The balance in setting these levels is to ensure we provide sufficient protection for people to swim safely while also ensuring we do not set a level that discourages people from enjoying the outdoors when the risks are low.

“I welcome further submissions from water quality scientists, and others with an interest, on the details of the gradings outlined in these additional reports by 25 May. We want to build wide support for the grading system to enable the focus to be on the significant task ahead in driving improvement.”

The reports can be seen at: https://niwa.co.nz/technical-background-report-swimmability and http://www.mfe.govt.nz/publications/fresh-water/swimming-categories-e-coli-clean-water-package

|  A Beehive release  ||  May 11, 2017   |||

Dutch inventor of self-healing concrete named finalist for European Inventor Award

• Hendrik Jonkers' bio-concrete takes inspiration from nature
• Concrete automatically seals cracks caused by tension
• Ground-breaking approach: healing bacteria survive up to 200 years in concrete and self-activate when damage occurs
• EPO President Benoît Battistelli: "Forward-looking innovation that opens up completely new perspectives for concrete production"

Munich/Delft, 21 April 2015 - Buildings and structures made of concrete that can "magically" seal and fully repair cracks caused by tension? What may have seemed a utopian scenario just a few years ago will soon become reality, thanks to the invention of microbiologist Hendrik "Henk" Marius Jonkers (50). His vision: to develop a bionic approach that improves the tensile strength and eco-friendly properties of concrete. The Dutch researcher set out to develop the bio-concrete of the future - with limestone-producing bacteria that can survive in a concrete structure for up to 200 years, and which "awaken" when damage occurs, enabling them to heal the cracks. In Europe, where concrete makes up 70 per cent of infrastructure, Jonkers' ground-breaking innovation promises to reduce the costs of concrete production and maintenance, as well as curb resultant carbon dioxide emissions. For his outstanding invention, Jonkers has been named a finalist for the renowned European Inventor Award of 2015 in the Research category. The 10th edition of the annual award will be presented by the European Patent Office (EPO) at a ceremony on 11 June in Paris.

"Hendrik Jonkers' bacterial concrete extends the life of bridges, streets and tunnels and opens up completely new perspectives for concrete production," said EPO President Benoît Battistelli, announcing the European Inventor Award finalists. "This forward-looking innovation is a successful combination of microbiology and civil engineering - two sciences that are unlikely collaborators at first glance."Jonkers exploits regenerative properties of nature

Henk Jonkers' passion for diving and camping was the spark that ignited his career: it began with studies in marine biology at the University of Groningen in the Netherlands. After completing his PhD in September 1999, he began to focus his developmental work on the observation of bacterial behaviour. He first experimented with limestone-producing bacteria as a research assistant at the Max Planck Institute for Marine Microbiology in Bremen. Self-healing octopus tentacles or plants that create new organisms with offshoots served as inspiration for Jonkers' invention. An expert in bacterial behaviour, he continued his career in 2006 at the Faculty of Civil Engineering and Geosciences at Delft University of Technology. Jonkers' research agenda in Delft focused on finding a solution to transfer the self-healing properties of natural organisms to a man-made building material, concrete.Self-healing agents encapsulated for over 200 years

To heal cracks in the concrete, Jonkers chose bacteria (Bacillus pseudofirmus and B. cohnii), that are able to produce limestone on a biological basis. The positive side-effect of this property: the bacteria consume oxygen, which in turn prevents the internal corrosion of reinforced concrete. However, the bacteria do not pose a risk to human health, since they can only survive under the alkaline conditions inside the concrete. Based on these findings, Jonkers and his team of researchers developed three different bacterial concrete mixtures: self-healing concrete, repair mortar, and a liquid repair system. In self-healing concrete, bacterial content is integrated during construction, while the repair mortar and liquid system only come into play when acute damage has occurred on concrete elements. Self-healing concrete is the most complex of the three variants. Bacterial spores are encapsulated within two-to four-millimetre wide clay pellets and added to the cement mix with separate nitrogen, phosphorous and a nutrient agent. This innovative approach ensures that bacteria can remain dormant in the concrete for up to 200 years. Contact with nutrients occurs only if water penetrates into a crack - and not while mixing cement. This variant is well-suited for structures that are exposed to weathering, as well as points that are difficult to access for repair workers. Thus, the need for expensive and complex manual repairs is eliminated.Sustainable prevention method could revolutionise concrete production

In recent years, bacterial concrete was subject to endurance tests under various external conditions on a dedicated testing building in Breda, the Netherlands. Plans are in place to launch the self-healing material on the market this year. Jonkers' invention has the potential to significantly reduce maintenance expenses for bridges, tunnels and retaining walls, which currently cost EUR 4 to 6 billion each year in the EU alone. Jonkers is now working on an alternative bacterial encapsulation technique. Compared to the present particle coating methodology, this technique would make it possible to cut production costs of bacterial concrete by an additional 50 per cent. Whereas production costs for conventional concrete amount to EUR 80 per cubic metre, a cubic metre of self-healing concrete would cost between EUR 85 and EUR 100 with the new encapsulated healing agent. With significantly lower repair and replacement costs over the lifetime of a building, this minimally higher investment would quickly pay itself off for all concrete structures.Additional resources

Read more about the inventorView the patent: EP2247551

Future bio-concrete as a sustainable construction technology

Super-bacteria are the answer: Jonkers' ground-breaking solution is one of many green innovations in the building sector currently under development. Bio-concrete of the future has the potential to lower carbon dioxide emissions released in Europe during construction and modernisation projects, both affordably and sustainably.

• Read more about green construction
• Ten years of the European Inventor Award: a retrospective look at the inventors and ideas that have changed our lives
• About the European Patent Office (EPO)
• Study on the economic impact of patents and other IP rightsStudy on the economic impact of patents and other IP rights
• |  An EPO release  ||  April 21, 2017   |||

Climate Change Minister Paula Bennett and Finance Minister Steven Joyce have asked the Productivity Commission to review how New Zealand can maximise the opportunities and minimise the costs and risks of transitioning to a lower carbon economy.

“This next step in our climate change work programme will enable us to properly assess the economic trade-offs that we’ll need to make to meet our ambitious 2030 Paris Agreement target,” says Mrs Bennett.

“In the long-term – 2030 and beyond – New Zealand will likely need to further reduce its domestic emissions in addition to the use of forestry offsets and international emissions reduction units, although these will continue to remain an important part of the country’s climate change response for meeting our targets.”

“New Zealand’s domestic response to climate change is, and will be in the future, shaped by our position as a small, globally connected and trade-dependent country” says Mr Joyce. “The Productivity Commission is well-placed to dispassionately assess which of the many ways of reducing emissions will make the most economic sense for New Zealand.”

Given that climate change is an economy wide-issue, the Commission will be able to draw considerable expertise from a range of stakeholders including: central and local government, the Climate Change Iwi Leadership Group, relevant industry and NGO groups, scientific and academic bodies and the general public.

The government is already taking action to support meeting the 2030 target of the Paris Agreement, this includes:

• Reviewing the New Zealand Emissions Trading Scheme
• Encouraging the up-take of electric vehicles and other energy efficiency technologies; and
• Establishing the Global Research Alliance to fund research into emissions mitigation in pasture based livestock systems.

“This complements the work undertaken by the Parliamentary cross-party group GLOBE NZ, as well as the Government’s expert advisory groups on agriculture, forestry and adaptation,” says Mrs Bennett.

“We look forward to the final report and recommendations for how New Zealand should manage a transition to a lower net emissions economy, while still maintaining and improving the incomes and prosperity of New Zealanders,” says Mr Joyce.

The Commission will report back by 30 June 2018.

|  A Beehive release  ||  May 02, 2017   |||

Primary Industries Minister Nathan Guy says there is a limit to further dairy intensification in New Zealand and growing exports in the future will depend more on increasing the value of products rather than the volume.

The number of dairy cattle in New Zealand has surged as farmers were lured by higher prices for dairy products while demand for sheepmeat and wool waned. The latest agricultural statistics for 2016 show New Zealand had 6.5 million dairy cattle, up from just 2.9 million four decades ago. Dairy products are the country's largest commodity export worth $11.3 billion in the year through February, and the government aims to double the value of primary sector exports to $64 billion by 2025 from $32 billion in 2012.

However, a recent string of reports has singled out dairy intensification as one of the key factors, alongside urbanisation, putting pressure on the country's environment, valued for its pristine natural wilderness.

"It will be challenging for the dairy industry to grow," Guy said. "There's no way that we can double the number of cows in New Zealand. One big opportunity the dairy industry does have is about increasing the value, not the volume."

In the past two months, New Zealand's worsening environmental record has come under the microscope of the OECD, Vivid Economics and the Prime Minister's chief science adviser Peter Gluckman, adding weight to previous reports by the Parliamentary Commissioner for the Environment Jan Wright. That's prompted a slew of editorials and opinion pieces in the country's major newspapers and a new freshwater policy from the government which aims to improve the 'swimmable' rating of lakes and rivers.

Today, New Zealand published its first Fresh Water report under the Environmental Reporting Act which showed urban areas have the biggest problem with polluted freshwater, but rural areas are showing a faster-declining trend in the quality of fresh water in lakes, rivers and streams. The environmental reports come ahead of a general election this September and Guy acknowledged they had heightened awareness going into the campaign.

He said farmers were working to improve their environmental standards, having voluntarily added about 26,000 kilometres of fencing over the past decade to exclude dairy cattle from waterways, and investing about $1 billion over the last five years to meet environmental obligations such as upgrading effluent systems, fencing, riparian planting and monitoring fertiliser usage. He said new technological advancements, such as more affordable nitrate probes and new cow breeds which produce fewer nitrates would assist farmers in the future.

"We realise that agriculture does have an impact on the environment. What has been lost in the recent debate has been the focus that farmers have on their environmental performance," Guy said. "What farmers and growers want is scientific tools in the toolbox that can help them address these challenges. There are moves afoot to allow farmers to make the changes that they need to make on farm."

He said the government was assisting the industry through putting extra funding into growing international trade, and its primary growth partnership and national science challenge initiatives, however he noted the focus was on "adding value as opposed to volume".

The debate should focus on what was the appropriate land use for the different catchments in the country, rather than what was the appropriate number of cows, and science would help inform those decisions.

"Those are decisions that regional councils will make on behalf of their community when it gets down to understanding their different water bodies and also they can place conditions on consents which they do do."

Guy said there was a "disconnect" between rural and urban communities, which the government and industry were trying to address by getting more urban children to understand farming.

"It's an ongoing challenge that anyone that's involved in the primary sector is very aware of," he said. "In the past, often children had the opportunity to get on their grandparents' farms and that has probably changed over time. If we can get more young pupils to understand where their milk comes from and where their meat comes from then that has got to be a good thing."

|  A Beehive release  ||  April 27, 2017  |||