Pathways ahead for New Zealand hill country farming

Abstract

<jats:p>This paper provides a stocktake of the status of hill country farming in New Zealand and addresses the challenges which will determine its future state and performance. It arises out of the Hill Country Symposium, held in Rotorua, New Zealand, 12-13 April 2016. This paper surveys people, policy, business and change, farming systems for hill country, soil nutrients and the environment, plants for hill country, animals, animal feeding and productivity, and strategies for achieving sustainable outcomes in the hill country. This paper concludes by identifying approaches to: support current and future hill country farmers and service providers, to effectively and efficiently deal with change; link hill farming businesses to effective value chains and new markets to achieve sufficient and stable profitability; reward farmers for the careful management of natural resources on their farm; ensure that new technologies which improve the efficient use of input resources are developed; and strategies to achieve vibrant rural communities which strengthen hill country farming businesses and their service providers. Keywords: farming systems, hill country, people, policy, productivity, profitability, sustainability</jats:p>

Developing a Landscape Design Approach for the Sustainable Land Management of Hill Country Farms in New Zealand

“…The environmental challenges facing future farming systems are likely to strongly impact upon NZ hill country farming. This is because environmental issues compound already high concerns for these farms, which are associated with the contemporary impacts of increasing production costs, market volatility, climate change, highly variable topography and climatic conditions, and more dispersed and isolated families and communities [17]. This means that future hill country farming systems will need to improve its profitability and build resilience in order to be able to adapt to a changing climate whilst reducing its impacts on the environment.…”

“…These include working towards cleaner freshwater, healthy and productive soils, thriving biodiversity and reduced emissions in order to achieve the goal of being carbon neutral by 2050 [98]. However, several environmental problems and the negative effects of climate change are challenging the sustainable development of this type of farming [17,101].…”

“…Over the period of 1990-2015, the total area of hill country sheep and beef farms decreased by approximately 1.3 million ha [100]. This is because the more productive land was converted to dairy farming or higher-value horticultural crops [97] whilst the steeper, less productive land, which is more vulnerable to erosion and generates lower financial returns [109], was converted to an alternative land use, such as forestry, manuka 2 for honey production or retirement and a return to native vegetation [17]. Recently, carbon farming, which is a conversion from pasture to forest, is emerging as an alternative to sheep and beef farming in hill country due to the dramatic increase in the price of carbon credits, and this conversion can bring high economic profit if this occurs in eligible areas (the land areas where 1 LUC class 1 is flat highly productive land and LUC class 8 is very steep unproductive land.…”