3 October 2017

Big turnout expected for free Effluent Expo

Nearly 40 exhibitors – with more expected – have been confirmed for the latest Effluent Expo being run by Waikato Regional Council, with support from DairyNZ.

Going on previous years, hundreds of farmers are expected to attend the event on 17 October, from 9am to 3.30pm, at the Claudelands Conference and Exhibition Centre in Brooklyn Rd, Hamilton.

The expo – now in its sixth year – builds upon the success of previous events by providing an opportunity for farmers to engage with a range of industry professionals around effluent management and infrastructure.

The council sees ‘doing it once and doing it right’ as a great guiding philosophy when it comes to upgrading farm effluent management systems and the expo will help farmers do just that.

Taking a holistic approach to farm effluent management is promoted and the expo provides a one-stop-shop for water, effluent storage and effluent application advice.

“The event aims to help farmers increase their effluent knowledge and have well-managed, fit-for-purpose effluent systems on their farms,” said council sustainable agriculture advisor Mark Gasquoine.

“Information will be available on a range of systems which will help ensure full compliance with relevant rules and good management practices in the region.”

Council farming services team leader Stuart Stone said there’s a lot of very positive farmer effort going in on meeting effluent management rules, although compliance data for the last financial year shows there are still some gains required.

“The farming services team strongly appreciates the efforts individual farmers are making to lift their game on the compliance front, whether it’s having the right infrastructure in place or sufficiently trained staff to ensure infrastructure is working as it should.

“We continue to work closely with farmers, often one-on-one, to support them in their efforts and investment to get their effluent storage complying 365 days a year. There has been some excellent progress in this space, and this expo reinforces the science, tools and support that is available to farmers,” he said.

The expo is free of charge to members of the public and, besides hosting stands from individual organisations, the expo will feature a number of relevant seminars throughout the day.

Seminar subjects include:
• Waikato Regional Council monitoring
• getting effluent storage volumes sorted
• extracting value out of farm dairy effluent.

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