Dr Tim Mackle, DairyNZ chief executive said, “New Zealand has a fast-growing population and we need to carefully plan for how we will feed and accommodate our future population.”
Around 14 percent of New Zealand’s land is classified as highly productive.
“The productive capacity of this land is essential to our national prosperity and wellbeing, providing food, employment, and supporting ecological processes, as well as being one of our most valuable economic assets. We want to protect it into the future,” said Dr Mackle.
“We want to ensure that dairy farmers on highly productive soils can continue to farm and contribute to their communities and we will be reviewing the proposals to identify if there are any impacts that need to be considered,” he adds.
DairyNZ plans to work with the government in the future to offer advice around issues relating to farming on highly productive soils.