Horticulture welcomes clean water plans
Horticulture New Zealand welcomes today’s Clean Water launch by the Government, says chief executive Mike Chapman.
"Water is, of course, the lifeblood of horticulture and our commercial growers have been innovating for some time with
environmentally sustainable ways of growing healthy, fresh food for all New Zealanders," Mr Chapman says.
"Growers implement a number of techniques to protect waterways near their properties. These including riparian planting
and management adjacent to waterways and silt traps to collect run-off caused by rain and stop anything entering nearby
waterways.
"Riparian planting has many benefits, particularly to water quality, but it is also very expensive and growers bear the
cost of that.
"It is great to see the Government opening applications for the $100 million Freshwater Improvement Fund, and we will
certainly be looking at projects that could be part of that to create more and better ways to protect waterways near
growing land.
"But it is also important to note that water quality in New Zealand is not solely the domain of people in the primary
industries or rural land owners. The bulk of New Zealanders live in cities and they both use a lot of water and create a
lot of waste water. So instead of always pointing the finger at those outside the cities, urban dwellers might want to
consider what their contribution to clean water in New Zealand might be to help our growers continue to feed them
healthy food in an environmentally sustainable way."
ENDS