Regenerative Agriculture and our Climate Action Plan

In response to a query from the Times-Age regarding regenerative agriculture and our Climate Action Plan, the following response was provided:

Regenerative farming is a hot topic within rural communities at present, and Council has been watching with interest how groups such as Quorum Sense and others are tailoring the international science and practice for a New Zealand context. As a provincial district, we are interested to see how regenerative agriculture could pay a role in New Zealand’s shift to low-emission farming over the next few decades.

The Council is supportive of more research generally into regeneration agriculture, but recognises uptake of these practices would be decisions for individual landowners.

As part of our Climate Action Plan consultation, the Council gauged interest in regenerative agriculture workshops being held locally. There was mixed feedback on that consultation point and Council decided that facilitating agriculture workshops is more relevant to GWRC, which has the staff land management expertise, and therefore it should not be prioritised in the shortlisted actions for our Climate Action Plan.