Plan Change 2 - Existing Intensive Farming Land Uses

What will Proposed Plan Change 2 do?

1. Update the cumulative nitrogen leaching maximums in Table 14.2 to reflect improvements in the nutrient modelling software tool Overseer;
2. Reinforce good management practices as part of intensive farming land use activities; and
3. Provide a workable pathway for landowners to apply for resource consent for intensive farming land use activities that cannot achieve Table 14.2 cumulative leaching maximums.

Background - Nutrient Management in the One Plan

The policies and rules in the One Plan manage nutrient leaching to water by intensive farming land uses.

When excess nutrients make their way into surface and groundwater, they can boost algal growth and affect water quality and life supporting capacity of freshwater and aquatic environments. The plan limits the amount of nitrogen that can be leached by intensive farming land uses by setting cumulative nitrogen leaching maximums. The maximums apply to existing farms in target catchments where there is poor water quality and farming is a significant land use across the catchment, and to new farms (conversions) anywhere in the region. 

Cumulative nitrogen leaching maximums were developed using the Overseer modelling software, allocating leaching limits according to the productive potential of the land – known as the ‘natural capital’ approach. The Regional Policy Statement policy directs that these limits must be “achievable on most farms using good management practice.”

It was intended that intensive farming land uses that could meet the cumulative nitrogen leaching maximums in Table 14.2 of the plan would be able to obtain consent as a ‘Controlled’ activity, which must be granted. Those intensive farming land uses that could not meet the maximums would be able to seek a consent as a ‘Restricted Discretionary’ activity, which could be declined.
 

Why is Proposed Plan Change 2 Needed?

In practice, the One Plan provisions to manage nutrient leaching are no longer working as intended, as the result of two external factors that have arisen since the One Plan became operative:

• There have been ongoing changes in the Overseer model. This means that farm systems that could have met the cumulative nitrogen leaching maximums in Table 14.2 of the One Plan, using the Overseer version that was used to originally develop them, no longer do so when modelled in the current version. This is the case even if nothing has changed in the farm’s practice in real terms.
• Changes in case law require the provisions to be applied in a way that may not have been anticipated when the One Plan was prepared. Directive policies to achieve or not exceed the cumulative nitrogen leaching maximums now make it very difficult to grant consent in circumstances where the limits are not met, even though the rules are written to provide for this to be considered.