Fears that many fruit and vegetable growers would be knocked out of business by a proposed irrigation tax are being expressed by Horticulture NZ. The Green Party’s recently-announced ‘clean rivers’ policy includes a plan to charge irrigated water users 10 cents for every 1,000 litres.
The Greens claim this would raise up to $570 million a year which they would spend on river and lake protection.“Water is the life blood of this country’s $5.5 billion horticulture industry, an employer of 50,000 people,” says HortNZ chief executive Peter Silcock. “This would be a major setback for the industry’s goal of achieving $10 billion in sales by 2020.“An irrigator tax will encourage fruit and vegetable growers to look at more profitable uses for their land which in the current environment is likely to be dairy conversions.”
An announcement last month by NIWA indicated that this could exacerbate the problem of water pollution.
It quoted an OECD report describing New Zealand’s water quality as “good” compared to that of most OECD countries but also warning that it is deteriorating.
Paris-based Dr Kevin Parris of the OECD’s Trade and Agriculture Directorate had told a DIPCON conference at Rotorua: “We look at all the nitrogen and phosphorus going into the system, mainly from livestock manure and fertilisers and calculate how much nutrients are used to grow crops and pasture.
“In most situations there is a surplus of nutrients to crop and pasture requirements.”
This puts stress on the environment, which includes the air and soil as well as water.
In 2000, NZ’s average was about 35 kg of nitrogen per hectare. By 2008 it had risen to about 45 kg.
The worst-ranked OECD country was the Netherlands with a surplus of more than 200 kg per hectare.
“They have a lot of cows and not much land,” explained Dr Parris.
The agricultural expansion, he added, will have a time-bomb effect because nitrogen and phosphorus can sit in soil a long time before appearing in water.
“Because of these time lags, in some catchments we won’t necessarily see the effects of current farming practices for another 30 to 40 years,” he said. After warning that the proposed water tax would destroy many fruit and vegetable businesses – and tempt a number of growers into switching to dairy – Peter Silcock of HortNZ said: “Growers do not have the luxury of being able to pass on their costs to consumers and the Greens are well aware of that.
“To get effective change we need to reward good behavior and penalise poor behavior rather than taxing everyone regardless of their performance.
“Ten cents may not sound like a lot but it is very significant. For most growers it will run into tens of thousands of dollars per year.”
