General Principles - Farm Planning and Records

How you can do this:

• Map the soil types, topography, waterways, artificial drainage networks, and irrigation.
• Note risk factors such as climate, soil loss, nutrient loss, and damage to soil structure.
• Record the locations of farm infrastructure, including boundary fences, entrances, tracks, buildings, stockyards, washdown sites, agrichemical and fuel storage, offal pits, rubbish dumps, underpasses, feed storage, effluent storage and application area, and irrigation areas.
• Locate Critical Source Areas (CSAs), i.e. features in the landscape where there is disturbance of some kind (e.g. stock pugging, water troughs, tracks), where water flow naturally accumulates, and where there is a connection to a waterway via gullies, swales, and drains.  

You can show you meet this GMP with:

• Farm description and map.
• Documented risk assessment.

→   GMP1 is the foundation for developing a Farm Environment Plan. It helps identify areas of risk to water and enables you to select mitigation measures to reduce these risks. Below are links to industry-specific templates that will guide you through the process.

Industry Farm Planning Templates: 

Foundation of Arable Research (FAR)  - Farm Environment Plan - Freshwater Module.pdf

Beef+LambNZ (B+LNZ) Guide to Farm Planning.pdf

The Deer Industry (DINZ)_Environmental Code of Practice (2018).pdf – This is not a template but presents the GMPs and industry-relevant mitigation options. 

Horticulture:

Farm Planning Tools:

Freshwater Farm Plan Tool | Developed by QCONZ

How you can do this:

• Maintain accurate and auditable records that:
  • Outline objectives to be achieved,
  • Support the farm's risk assessment process,
  • List all relevant farming activities and practices, showing that GMPs are being followed,
  • Show the assessment of all risks to water quality,
  • Detail how and when actions to reduce risks will be taken, and
  • Allow for the creation of an annual nutrient budget (e.g., OVERSEER FM®).
• Use industry templates or software to record key information, such as water use, fertiliser inputs, spray diaries, planting dates, paddock rotation, feed inputs and composition, stock numbers, and production outputs or yield .
• Review planned actions annually (e.g., conduct a self-audit).

You can show you meet this GMP with:

• Records of farm inputs, outputs and management practices.
• A predictive Nutrient Budget and Plan (e.g., OVERSEER FM®).

How you can do this:

• Consider your identified risk factors (GMP #1), including:
  • Distance from surface waterways and effectiveness of buffers,
  • Slope of the land (degree and length) in relation to the waterway,
  • Soil type and texture, and quality (e.g., susceptibility to pugging or compaction),
  • Climatic and weather conditions to determine the timing of grazing and/or cultivation,
  • Cultivation methods (pre-, during, and post-cultivation; contour, no- or low-tillage), and
  • Previous and future use of the land.

• Look for opportunities to:
  • Prevent sediment and nutrients from entering waterways and prevent soil loss through erosion, overland flow, and wind (e.g., space-planted trees, windbreaks, cover crops)
  • Prevent or remedy soil damage

• Potential mitigation strategies:
  • Leave grassed areas around gullies and riparian margins. If spraying out pasture, first identify areas that won’t be worked or re-sown (e.g., gullies, runners, riparian margins, rocky areas).
  • Establish buffer strips and implement grazing techniques (e.g. directional grazing), building sediment traps, interception drains, headlands, diversion bunds).
  • In heavy soils, graze and cultivate when conditions are dry enough to reduce compaction and pugging and improve drainage and soil structure.
  • Consider using sub-soiling or ripping to remedy soil compaction.

You can show you meet this GMP with:  

• Records of identified farm risks (your farm map) and management practices.