By Celsias Team
Posted on July 19, 2010. Listed in:
Environment Waikato has established a new internet-based trading noticeboard for farmers wishing to buy, sell or lease nitrogen under the new Variation 5 policy to protect Lake Taupo.
Variation 5 is designed to cap and reduce the amount of nitrogen leaching into Lake Taupo from farms to protect water quality in the lake, while allowing farms business flexibility and choice.
Under the scheme, the first in New Zealand of its kind, each rural property will be assessed and assigned a nitrogen discharge allowance (NDA) and total annual nitrogen discharge. These measures will cap the amount of nitrogen that is allowed to leach from their farming operations on an annual basis.
Farmers have the option of farming less intensively than their cap allows and selling any "surplus" nitrogen (at a price per kilogram) to others in the catchment who want to farm more intensively than their cap allows. The price paid for nitrogen will be determined by market forces
"Depending on the market prices established for nitrogen, some farmers may find it a viable option to de-intensify, sell nitrogen and change to low nitrogen leaching land use options," says programme manager Natasha Hayward.
The central Government and local council-funded Lake Taupo Protection Trust will also remain active in the market for nitrogen says Hayward. "The trust, which is aiming to reduce nitrogen outputs from the pastoral area in the catchment by 20 percent to protect Lake Taupo, will still be looking to purchase nitrogen from farmers."
Start your trading here.
Image: Flickr - Andrew*
