#OPINION
Some Farmers have spent much of this year campaigning against arrangements that give iwi a meaningful voice in local environmental decision-making.
Others have described assessments of Māori cultural values as excessive, unworkable, costly and divisive. They have warned that recognising concepts such as mauri, whakapapa and wairua will create delays for farmers seeking resource consents. They have also pushed for replacement resource-management laws to shut these arrangements down.
Now that the Government has moved to weaken the formal agreements that allow councils and iwi to work together, some in the farming lobby appear to be celebrating.
What a crock.
Before Farmers put the boot into Māori, it might want to take a long, hard look over its own fences—and into some of the filthy paddocks that councils are routinely forced to investigate.
Māori Are Not Outsiders to the Rural Economy
The suggestion that iwi involvement somehow imposes an external burden on farming ignores the enormous contribution Māori make throughout New Zealand’s rural economy.
Māori agribusiness holds or manages an estimated $13 billion in primary-sector assets and contributes more than $1.9 billion annually to agricultural exports. Māori interests are deeply involved in dairy, sheep and beef, forestry, horticulture, aquaculture, honey and emerging high-value industries.
Māori entities are also estimated to own or manage about 30 percent of New Zealand’s beef and lamb production, while Māori make up nearly 40 percent of the meat-processing workforce.
So let us dispense with the idea that Māori are standing outside the farm gate, clipboards in hand, trying to make life difficult for the “real” rural sector.
Māori are in the front paddock, the back paddock, the shearing shed, the processing plant, the boardroom and the export office.
Māori are farmers, growers, foresters, processors, exporters, workers and landowners. Māori agribusiness is not a side note to New Zealand agriculture—it is one of its foundations.
Kaitiakitanga Is Not Red Tape
Some Farmers appear irritated by the idea that activities affecting whenua and wai should be assessed through Māori values.
But why should mauri, whakapapa and kaitiakitanga be treated as inconvenient abstractions?
For Māori, whenua is not simply a production unit. A river is not merely an irrigation channel, and soil is not simply an input to be mined until its productive value disappears.
Māori landowners frequently make decisions across generations, balancing commercial returns with water quality, biodiversity, cultural responsibilities and the wellbeing of whānau who are yet to be born. Māori enterprises are investing in riparian planting, native restoration, regenerative agriculture, waterway protection, renewable energy and carbon projects.
That is not anti-farming. It is responsible farming.
There can be reasonable debate over whether every council rule is clear, proportionate or efficiently administered. But Some Farmers cross a line when they frames Māori participation itself as the problem.
The problem is not that iwi care about what happens to the land. The problem is that some organisations still resent Māori having any formal influence over decisions affecting ancestral whenua and waterways.
What Is Really Costing Councils?
Some Farmers enjoy talking about the supposed cost of iwi engagement. It is less vocal about the significant public resources councils devote to monitoring pollution, inspecting rural properties, responding to complaints and prosecuting environmental offending.
Across New Zealand’s 16 regional and unitary councils, 7,576 enforcement actions were taken in the year to June 2025—a 16 percent increase. Those actions included formal warnings, infringement notices, abatement notices and enforcement orders.
During the same year, 56 concluded prosecutions produced 156 convictions and more than $3.1 million in court-imposed fines. Council teams also monitored more than 76,000 resource consents requiring oversight.
The national report does not provide a clean public breakdown showing exactly how many of those 7,576 actions involved farmers, iwi organisations, industrial businesses, developers or individual households. That means it would be wrong to claim that every—or even most—of those actions involved farming.
But the available prosecution record makes one thing abundantly clear: rural non-compliance is not imaginary, and dealing with it is neither free nor straightforward.
Where is the evidence that iwi participation costs councils more than investigating pollution, inspecting effluent systems, issuing notices, assembling prosecutions and appearing in court?
There is no credible national figure demonstrating that councils spend more “dealing with Māori” than they do responding to agricultural effects. Anyone making that claim should produce the evidence rather than relying on grievance and insinuation.
The Effluent Cases Farmers Would Rather Ignore
In June, a Waihī dairy farmer was convicted and fined $39,000 after Waikato Regional Council prosecuted two unlawful dairy-effluent discharges. Council officers found discharges from the dairy shed and through over-irrigation, both posing a significant risk to groundwater. The offending occurred after an earlier abatement notice had already been issued.
In May, a South Waikato farmer was fined $56,000 for two unlawful effluent discharges. Inspectors found a sump had overflowed, creating extensive ponding, while a travelling irrigator was operating on already saturated pasture. Again, the discharges posed a risk to groundwater.
Those cases required council officers, inspectors, sampling, evidence gathering, legal preparation, prosecution and court time.
Who paid the institutional cost of that process? The council and, ultimately, the wider system of ratepayers and consent holders that funds environmental regulation.
And these are not isolated concerns. Councils monitor dairy effluent, freshwater takes, earthworks, forestry, burning, waste, land disturbance and other activities because environmental damage does not stop at a farm boundary.
Effluent does not check who owns the neighbouring property before entering groundwater.
Pollution does not care whether Federated Farmers believes kaitiakitanga is too difficult to understand.
Perhaps a Little Humility Is Required
Most farmers work hard, care for their land and want to comply with environmental rules. Councils themselves emphasise education and engagement before enforcement, and it would be unfair to portray the entire farming sector through the actions of those prosecuted.
But some Farmers demand nuance and understanding whenever farmers are criticised, while too often offering neither to Māori.
It complains about division while portraying iwi involvement as illegitimate.
It complains about costs while ignoring the cost of rural pollution and non-compliance.
It complains that Māori values are uncertain while expecting Māori communities to accept the very real consequences when waterways are contaminated, habitats are degraded and culturally significant places are damaged.
That double standard is becoming tiresome.
Partnership Is Not a Veto
Council–iwi agreements are not about handing every resource-consent decision to iwi. They are about establishing processes for engagement, information sharing, cultural assessment and recognition of obligations that arise from Te Tiriti and Treaty settlements.
Some Farmers may dislike those obligations, but inconvenience does not make them illegitimate.
For generations, Māori had decisions made about their whenua, rivers and resources with little or no meaningful input. When mechanisms are finally established to rebalance that history, Māori are told the process is too costly, too complicated or too divisive.
The message appears to be that partnership is acceptable only when Māori participation changes nothing.
That is not partnership. It is decoration.
Clean Up Your Own Paddock
Farmers are entitled to advocate for their ilk. They are entitled to challenge badly drafted rules and demand efficient consent processes.
What it they are not entitled to do is treat Māori as an obstacle to rural prosperity while benefiting from an agricultural economy in which Māori are major investors, producers, workers and environmental leaders.
Nor should it celebrate the weakening of iwi participation while farmers continue to appear before the courts for conduct that threatens whenua and wai.
So here is some free advice for Farmers:
Before lecturing Māori about cost, complexity or environmental decision-making, look at the enforcement notices.
Look at the prosecutions.
Look at the polluted groundwater risks.
Look at the millions councils and communities invest in trying to maintain environmental standards.
And then look at the Māori farmers, workers and landowners helping carry this country’s primary sector.
Clean up your own paddock before putting the boot into Māori.
This article is an opinion piece and reflects the views of the author.
#Opinion #TeKaupapa #FederatedFarmers #MāoriAgribusiness #ManaWhakahonoARohe #Kaitiakitanga #TeTiriti #Farming #Agriculture #DairyFarming #WaterQuality #EnvironmentalCompliance #LocalGovernment #Whenua #Wai #MāoriEconomy #RadioWaatea #WaateaNews
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