Country came to town on Monday, with a number of farmers concerned about how the draft district plan affects their land use.

More than 20 farmers attended a Waitaki District Council district plan review sub-committee meeting to listen as councillors discussed proposed changes to land designations, which could see productive farmland reclassified as areas of outstanding natural features (ONF), and areas of significance to Māori.

Duntroon farmer Otto Dogterom parked his tractor outside council offices while he attended the hearings, with a sign on it that said: “Save Our People, Save Our Valley”.

North Otago farm consultant Sven Thelning has been engaged by about 30 farmers from the lower Waitaki Valley and Moeraki area, to communicate with council on their behalf.

He said farmers are for the most part keen to protect genuinely significant features on their farmland, but some of the proposed land-use changes did not make sense.

From the landowner's perspective, if something is determined to be an ONF, it means buildings have to be underground, and earthworks for any changes will be restricted quite a lot, Sven said.

“So like, if a farmer wanted to put in any sort of new infrastructure, which is a pretty common thing for a farmer to do . . . it's not so much [a problem] for existing uses, as for in the future. 

“You don't know what that land might be needed for, so that's changed from, you know, cropping, to wool production, to meat production, to now dairy. Other places you might have had deer and trees and all sorts of other things.” 

A lot of the restrictions can be agreed on, but others, particularly around earthworks, remain problematic.

“It's not that we think there should be earthworks in a genuinely outstanding natural feature, our position is that some of the area up and down, next to the Waitaki River is not at all that outstanding, and it's certainly not natural. 

“It's covered in exotic species, and it's long been farmed, so we're just trying to get that moved a little bit,” he said.

Sven said Otto’s intention by driving his tractor to town, is to “underline the strength of feeling”, but that feeling is not necessarily anger.

Right now, farmers do feel they are being listened to by the councillors, he said.

“We feel that the councillors are scrutinising the plan really well and asking all the right questions. 

“We saw that yesterday (Monday) because they had a 700-page agenda, and they were supposed to get through that in three hours, but they only got through 200.

“That might not sound like a good thing, but it actually is, because this is a once in 10- to 15-year, possibly 20-year, cycle to get this right and so it's really important,” he said.

One farmer up the valley has 100 percent of her farm covered in an overlay, which would completely restrict her and means she wouldn't have the option of doing a given activity on any part of her farm, he said.

Other people have 60 percent, and in other cases some only have a small area, but that was an area they had plans for, and so the disruption of the what is proposed can be massive.

“So you know, we know they're not trying to shut down farming. We know that's not the intent, but it's just, we're just engaging with the process to get a better outcome.”

Everyone can see there are things that need to be protected and farmers endorsed some of the proposed ONF in their submissions, but the core of what the farmers are saying is encumbrances should not be on already productive land, Sven said.

“Because there's nothing there to protect that hasn't, you know, 100 years ago been removed already.”

He gave credit to council planners, who had taken on board the farmers’ concerns in their submissions.

In Moeraki, Sven said he had been working for more than a year now with council and Aukaha planners to try and find a “win/win solution” with the sites and areas of significance to Māori.

The biggest restrictions on farming activity in that area is around converting to dairy and irrigation, he said.

“Converting to dairy is probably not going to happen anyway, but the irrigation one does and should.”

There are restrictions around irrigating near rock art and limestone cliffs, but Sven argues technology means “low-rate” irrigation can be used, so the water doesn’t seep down to the cliffs.

“So we're sort of pushing for that sort of solution, but once again, we're also trying to get that on the productive land, and it's the same concept, as we want to have a balance.

“A lot of that stuff's there because it's been looked after by successive landowners, and landowners do want it to be protected, there's no two ways about it, but at the same time, they've got to be able to afford to protect it. They need to be able to farm their farm, and to be able to change their land use.”

Historically land-use has changed as a result of economic conditions and duress, so to put more economic barriers in the way of changing that productive part of the land causes problems, Sven said. 

It is all about future generations, and them being able to change how and what they farm, as and when they need to. 

“The land use is unlikely to change in present generations because it's hard to see anything that's better than dairy right now, but there will be one day. 

“We don't know what that is yet, you know, but one day there will be and we don't want to have to apply for consents to do that.”

Farmers endorse council's approach to liberalise earthworks slightly for the general rural zone, and would like that to apply to rural properties wherever possible “without, obviously damaging anything we think should be protected”, Sven said.

Farmers are trying to offer practical solutions to protecting significant areas, as opposed to having “massive buffers” around them into productive land.  

They have submitted alternative maps to councillors, planners, and to the iwi.

“We're not just here with problems, we’ve got practical solutions. How we can get the balance.

“Like I said, we're not against all this stuff. We just need it to be in the right shape.”