Environment
BCI is committed to balancing the irrigation needs of farmers with sustaining and safeguarding the natural environment.
The New Zealand Government has set its expectations for environmental performance by farmers and other users of natural resources, through the National Policy Statement on Fresh Water. This effectively developed a set of guidelines for the various Regional Councils across the country, from which the Canterbury Regional Council developed the Land and Water Regional Plan. Under that plan, BCI operates an Audited Self Management programme authorised by a Nutrient Discharge consent, which essentially places the environmental performance responsibilities of the BCI irrigators with BCI itself.
In practice, BCI utilises the Enviro Collective team to work with shareholders to support their environmental requirements – with the aim of meeting or in many cases exceeding Good Management Practice (GMP), an industry accepted schedule of practices on farm that will lead to good environmental outcomes. This support includes assistance with completion of Farm Environment Plans, collation and quality checking of Nutrient Budgets, facilitated workshops on industry innovations or training, and facilitation of independent on-farm Audits.
The primary environmental challenge in Mid Canterbury is nitrate loss to groundwater from intensive farming. The processes described above has a strong focus on minimising BCI’s collective losses and improving groundwater quality.
The BCI Environmental Management Strategy sets out how we manage and measure our Audited Self Management programme. Feel free to get in touch if you would like more information on this.
You can also see how we have been performing in the Annual BCI Nutrient Discharge Reports: