Simon Cameron: Federated Farmers West Coast President on the Green Party's policy around rivers and oceans

Federated Farmers is challenging the Green Party's crack down on nitrate levels in fresh water.  

If elected, the party's promising stronger national standards for fresh water, more robust rules for wastewater discharges, and the phasing out of synthetic nitrogen fertiliser.  

Federated Farmers West Coast President Simon Cameron told Ryan Bridge there have been issues in the past, but the industry has come a long way.  

He says phasing out nitrogen fertilizer would reduce the country's production by at least 25%, and as an export nation, our income would be threatened.   

LISTEN ABOVE 

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
So another policy drop from the Greens will be ecstatic
to know. They want to ban on synthetic fertilizers on
farms to help clean up waterways. They want to reduce
the number of cows. They're also pushing to end bottom trawling.
Here is Madam and Davidson.

Speaker 2 (00:13):
We just need to stop buying into this whole concept
of ruining our rivers is the only way to make
a buck. We can totally reject that and that is
what the Greens are doing today.

Speaker 1 (00:23):
Simon Cameron, fed Farmer's West Coast President, Simon, good morning,
how are you very well? Thank you? Just to do
the Greens have a point that it is intensive farming
that has caused a lot of our rivers to be unswimmable,
like as a basic fact. Is that wrong?

Speaker 2 (00:43):
Yeah?

Speaker 3 (00:43):
I mean yeah, you'd certainly challenge it is looking around
Wellington and Auckland. Where's that issue're coming from?

Speaker 1 (00:49):
Well, that's outfit, that's out literally our own waste. But
in rural New Zealand, you know they reckon half the
rivers are because of nitrates and stuff that runoff that's
come from farms. Are they wrong in saying that?

Speaker 3 (01:06):
Yeah? I mean there's i would challenge it. There's and
there's Yeah, there's been issues in the past, but you
look at where where we've come from. We're certainly making
bigger roads and proving things a heck of a lot.
We've got one hundred and ninety kilogram per year per
year careful on these things now, So we're catchment groups
are done a phenomenal job right period plantings, Yeah, I

(01:29):
think we're heading in the right direction. We've done a
lot in the last dec order two decade of two.

Speaker 1 (01:34):
And if you read their policy document, they say simon
that it's basically unchecked in environmental vandalism that's going on.
You're saying that it's not unchecked. We have limits, we
have rules, there are standards.

Speaker 3 (01:47):
Yeah, absolutely, that's ridiculous. That is absolutely checked. And we've
come a very very long way. Look, technology has come
a long way. Everyone's sort of picked that up and
it implemented it from Wearable's precision. They are a lot
more careful in how we use it. We're using a
lot less of it, to be honest, from what we
were a few years ago. And I mean, what do
they want us to do, because by phasing it out,

(02:10):
you're going to reduce what this country can produce by
at least twenty five percent. We're an export nation down
to the bottom of South Pacific. What are you going
to do for anything to the country. I mean, that is.

Speaker 1 (02:21):
The fundamental question. So twenty five percent you reckon. So
is that the nitrate at least that the synthetic nitrogen fertilizer.
If you get rid of that, if you ban that,
that's twenty five percent at least of industry that's gone.

Speaker 3 (02:34):
Yeah, at least right, So everything, it all starts with
the seed, but it needs the nutrients to grow. And
every time you grow something, you know, if you're an
arable farmer, for example, what doesn't mean if you're growing grass, wheat, corn,
mung beans. It doesn't matter. If you grow something, you
take it away, whether you've grazed it or you've harvest it.
You're taking nutrients from the sore. You've got to replenish

(02:55):
it up.

Speaker 1 (02:56):
So Simon Good TV on the program, Simon Cameron fed
Armer's West Coast President with us This Morning Time. For
more from Early Edition with Ryan Bridge, Listen live to
news talks. It'd be from five am weekdays, or follow
the podcast on iHeartRadio,