We’re Recruiting a Water Delivery Co-Ordinator to join our team

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The BCI Scheme is a modern irrigation scheme in Mid Canterbury which is owned by the 180 farmer shareholders of Barrhill Chertsey Irrigation Limited. The scheme delivers pressurised water to around 25,000ha, and generates electricity within its infrastructure.

The BCI Scheme requires the services of a methodical and analytical minded person to join the planning team, whose core role is to ensure the daily irrigator demand for water is met and compliance is achieved. This role will be based in our Ashburton office and require the successful candidate to;

  • Compute the daily irrigation demand and match with supply from various sources.
  • Prepare daily and monthly usage and compliance reports.
  • Be available for roster over weekends.

The applicant will have a high level of numeracy and attention to detail, have good computer skills, be a great communicator, and enjoy working in a small team environment.

This is a fixed term position for the current irrigation season, full time over the Summer, with rostered weekend cover continuing until April 2024.

Please see Job Description below.  Questions or applications to operations@bciwater.co.nz

To Shareholders Sept23_ Water Delivery Coordinator Job Description

Update from ECan re Winter Grazing Flyovers

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For more information, visit https://www.ecan.govt.nz/your-region/farmers-hub/essential-freshwater-package-farmers-guide/intensive-winter-grazing/flyovers/

ECan have given us this feedback upon completion of their mid year flyovers of the Canterbury Region:

Winter grazing flights see good practice being adopted

Good paddock preparation and winter grazing practices will ensure the effects on freshwater of winter grazing in Canterbury will be minimised over winter, which is especially important given the wet winter and recent heavy rainfall, according to observations made by Environment Canterbury and industry.

 

The regional council undertook two mid-season monitoring flights in July, over Waimakariri and Ashburton, with field staff and industry representatives observing winter grazing in practice. In those flights we saw stock being excluded from waterways with good buffers in place, and effort being put into pugging management with bales laid out prior to grazing, adequate number of troughs and feeders and in more than one case the use of back fencing.

 

In general, paddocks had been carefully chosen to avoid critical source areas and where they were evident they were excluded with good buffers. However, in some cases farmers to need to ensure they are appropriately managing these critical source areas by avoiding cultivating, sowing and grazing them over winter as required by the national regulations.

 

We identified two farms in each region where it looks like best practices may not have been implemented, and Environment Canterbury staff will be following up with landowners to ensure their winter grazing practices are improved and that no adverse effects on freshwater occur.

 

Staff will also be contacting some farmers to acknowledge their efforts in implementing positive practices, especially those who have made considerable improvements after follow-up in the 2022 winter season. Environment Canterbury staff will also ensure that farmers are on track to get resource consent for winter grazing where required.

 

Advanced Mitigation Arable Field Day

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BCI and The Enviro Collective team, in partnership with Hewson Farms, hosted a successful and well attended Field Day on Advanced Mitigation in an arable context in December 2022.  The flyer below contains more information.  Please don’t hesitate to get in touch with one of the team at www.envirocollective.co.nz if you have any questions.

ENVIRO_EVENT_LEAFLET_EMAIL

Board Announcement – CEO Appointment

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Board Announcement

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Board Announcement
17 June 2022
I announce on behalf of the BCI Board, that Richard Bowman our CEO, has signalled his intention to leave the role at the end of September 2022.  He has been offered the COO position with the Midlands group, which he has accepted.  Richie has built strong relationships within BCI, as well as with shareholders and our wider stakeholders, and we know this has not been an easy decision for him.

We acknowledge and thank Richie for his contribution while he has been with BCI.  We have been impressed with his ability to understand the complex nature of our business and he has made significant gains for the company during his tenure.  Richie’s ability to think strategically with a strong ‘solutions focus’ has enabled further progression of BCI’s key strategic objectives.  We have enjoyed working with Richie and wish him well in his new role.

The Board has begun the recruitment process and will work closely with Richie to ensure a smooth transition.  The BCI team is highly skilled and capable, which gives us confidence of a smooth succession.
I will keep you informed in due course of Richie’s successor.

Jan Early
Chair

Board Announcement – Independent Director Tony King

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As a cooperative Company with a Board made up of farmer shareholders and executive management, BCI sees great benefit to our shareholders and other stakeholders in Mid Canterbury, in bringing in an outside perspective, with strong commercial acumen and a wide range of skills and experience.  We believe that outside thinking provides a positive contribution enabling the business to grow and develop valuable long-term strategy, and shows our commitment to Governance best practice, ensuring continued beneficial contribution to our wider community.

The BCI Board is pleased to announce the appointment of independent director Tony King, who will be replacing Jeremy Smith when he retires from his position after the March meeting.

Jeremy has provided an insightful perspective alongside BCI’s farmer directors, and the board wishes to thank him for the wise counsel, intellect and professional conduct he has brought to the table during his tenure of over 6 years.  His contribution has been invaluable.

Tony King has held a variety of roles as director and chair over the last 18 years and is a Chartered Member of the IOD. Currently he is chair of MainPower NZ Ltd, the lines company serving the largely rural area of North Canterbury. He is also a director of RBL Property Ltd – formerly Red Bus Ltd – and of his own consultancy firm Option One Ltd.  Tony has recently held senior management positions as CEO of Red Bus and Solid Energy before that.  He has a particular interest in infrastructure and renewable energy, and a longstanding connection to farming through his wider family.

We look forward to working with Tony and have no doubt that BCI shareholders will benefit from the breadth of skills and experience he will bring with him to the Board.

Central Plains Water Ltd – N Loss Workshop 2020

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[pdf-embedder url=”https://bciwater.co.nz/wp-content/uploads/2020/09/CPWL-N-Loss-Workshop-Flyer.pdf” title=”CPWL N Loss Workshop Flyer”]

Ashburton Guardian 16 July 2020 – Farmers urged to cut synthetic nitrogen use

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Mid Canterbury dairy farmers are being urged to start cutting their synthetic nitrogen fertiliser use this season in anticipation of the 190kg per hectare cap being implemented from July next year.

At an Irrigo Centre Facing our Future expo and trade show at the Hotel Ashburton, farmers were told that water quality in Mid Canterbury was under stress and a lot of this was connected to farming activity.

Six irrigation schemes operate under the Irrigo banner, covering 180,000 hectares in Mid Canterbury. Collectively, this represented 20 per cent of New Zealand’s irrigated area, Irrigo Centre environmental manager Eva Harris said.

“So, the changes that we make individually will collectively make a big difference to water quality in our catchment.”

Tighter regulations, cutting nitrogen applications and nitrogen loss into the environment were being imposed because water quality trends were not going in the right direction, Harris said.

“I can’t fight your corner until I see these trends go in the opposite direction. So, we need to make change to see change.”

Positive change was occurring with almost 75 per cent of Barrhill Chertsey Irrigation shareholders now meeting good management practice, compared with 10 per cent when the auditing programme started about five years ago.

As 80 per cent of Irrigo shareholders applied an average of more than 190kg/ha of nitrogen, the Government-imposed cap would have a significantly disproportionate impact on Canterbury farmers, Harris said.

Information provided to Irrigo from farmers’ nutrient budgets showed that while some big nitrogen users were applying up to 500kg/ha, the average application rate was coming down.

Last year, Mid Canterbury dairy farmers applied an average 220kg/ha of nitrogen, down from 250kg/ha in 2015-18.

About 10 per cent of Irrigo shareholders were applying more than 300kg/N/ha, Harris said.

No information had been provided by government on how the 190kg/ha cap would be calculated, or what product types were included, though it had indicated it applied to synthetic nitrogen fertiliser.

Virginia Serra, of DairyNZ, who is leading a five-year project to reduce nitrogen losses from dairy farms in the at risk Hinds and Selwyn water catchments, said that work to date had been looking for solutions for the whole farming system and the whole nitrogen cycle.

“To date we have focused on output, which is what is lost to the environment. With this new regulation we are forced to concentrate on one particular input – nitrogen.”

As well as applied nitrogen, the other main sources of nitrogen in pastoral farming were supplementary feed and nitrogen naturally fixed by legumes such as clover.

Nitrogen fertiliser was strongly correlated with nitrogen surplus and a higher nitrogen surplus was strongly correlated with nitrogen loss, Serra said.

“So while we would have preferred not to have this input control, it is taking us in the right direction.’

Farmers could drop nitrogen usage by about 20 per cent from higher rates of around 300kg/ha without major effect, but cutting the last 40kg from the average application rate of about 230kg/N/ha down to the new cap “could be challenging”, Serra said.

Normally it would take two to three years to increase clover content in pasture, to offset the fall in nitrogen use, and to make other management changes.

“It is difficult to have a hard number with a biological system.”

Serra advised farmers to make half the cut this season and the other half from July 2021, to meet the nitrogen cap.

Farmers still needed to get clarity on whether fertiliser use was calculated over the total or effective farm area, how effluent and non-effluent areas would be considered, how nitrogen use on crops in the milking platform would be considered, and how the cap was going to be monitored, Serra said.

– By Heather Chalmers