Fish & Game welcomes dairy success at awards

Fish & Game welcomes dairy success at awards

Fish & Game NZ is welcoming the success of Mid-Canterbury dairy farmers Mark and Devon Slee taking the top Balance Farm Environment Award last night.

“Dairying has never won the top national award before,” says Fish & Game chief executive Bryce Johnson. “In winning the coveted Gordon Stevenson Trophy, Mark and Devon are demonstrating that environmentally sustainable and profitable dairy farming is not only possible but up there alongside the other farming categories that have previously won the top national award.

“The challenge for the dairy industry now is to capitalise on this success story and ensure it reaches the rest of the dairy sector.”

Mr Johnson believes the dairy companies have a special role to play here.

“The dairy companies must become more directly engaged in requiring an agreed baseline standard of environmental performance from their suppliers.

“This should be of no concern to most dairy farmers but would provide some useful leverage to improve the operations of the persistent bad environmental performers whom the industry acknowledges pull down the whole sector.”

The Ballance Farm Environment Awards are a great opportunity for the rural sector to display to the rest of New Zealand the good work being done by landowners.

“While I am often told there are many good ‘farming and environment’ stories out there, recent public opinion surveys clearly show the primary sector is not good at telling them.

“Fish & Game would gladly endorse good environmental performance but, like the general public of New Zealand, examples need to be put out there for everyone to see and the likes of Fish & Game to provide complementary comment on.”

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