Effects of farming on NZ's 'Clean Green' image

“Bulldoze the trees, bring in the cows - In recent times we’re seen large-scale deforestation to make way for the intensification of dairy farming in New Zealand. Our agricultural sector is already responsible for nearly half of all domestic greenhouse gas emissions, and through the intensification, deforestation and expansion of the dairy sector this contribution is set to soar. Remember that under the Government’s emission trading scheme, the sector doesn’t need to take responsibility for its emissions until 2013. According to the Ministry of Agriculture and Forestry some 455,000 hectares of forestry land is at risk of being deforested and converted into pastoral use. This is nearly seven times the size of Lake Taupo. Government figures also project that the number of dairy cows in New Zealand will increase by up to 21 per cent by 2010. We can expect a corresponding increase in greenhouse gas emissions; to say nothing of dirty streams and waterways.”

http://www.greenpeace.org/new-zealand/en/news/blog/100-per-cent-pure-misnomer-how-clean-green-nz/blog/24364

Article on Riparian Planting

““The Taranaki Regional Council began its riparian management programme over a decade ago, with the aim of protecting water quality and aquatic habitats in the region,” says Mr Walter.
Through the riparian programme Council staff provide riparian management plans at no cost to land owners, with farmers meeting the costs of fencing and planting. Plan holders can purchase suitable native riparian plants at cost through the Council’s riparian plant scheme. Bulk purchasing by the Council keeps the cost of plants at around $2.50 each.

Plan holders will collect their orders next week, taking the number of plants supplied through the Council’s riparian plant scheme in the last ten years to more than one million plants. Over 200,000 riparian plants will be supplied this season and there’s still time for farmers who haven’t placed orders yet to contact the Council. In addition, some farmers have been carrying out their own initiatives for more than 20 years.

Riparian fencing and planting creates a buffer between the effects of farming activities and the waterways, to protect water quality and aquatic habitats. And as well as benefiting the environment, riparian fencing and planting makes farm management easier.”

http://www.trc.govt.nz/farmers-and-environment-winners-from-riparian-planting/

5th group meeting

Type of meeting		5th Group Meeting
Note taker		Brittany
Time of meeting		4 hours
Attendees		Rajas, Brittany, Emmanuelle, Briar, Olivia
AGENDA TOPICS: Negotiation Final Process
Discussion	Outcomes
·      Clean H20 & Civilian: the company agrees to paint pumps green in colour.
·      With the Clean Streams Accord possibly being passed. This will not only hurt the farmers financially but also the company. We will be asking for funding my local councils.
Clean H20 offers the farmers with an “environmentally friendly” gold medal to each farm. This medal can be apart of the labeling for the farms products and is looked highly upon in NZ and offers an incentive for farmers to be apart of. With the gold medal, Clean H20 offers a 10% increase in sales per year.
Because the farmer believes the prices for Clean H20 is too expensive to incur up-front. We will offer $3000 up-front and $1500/ year. This will be a total of $9000 for one farmer for five years.``
Clean H20 also offers farmers with companies who produce organic chemicals. NGO and Clean H20: NGO likes the idea of our pumps but would like the company to put more effort into R&D for our Education program. In return NGO will agree to help promote our company and the importance of the gold medal. Also NGO will help get support for local governments to subsidie the costs of pumps.
Conclusions
·       We are almost finished with negotiations but after speaking with Idil we are now working on our organizational model.
·      In class we worked on our PowerPoint and discussed how our presentation will go.
Action items			Person responsible	Deadline
·Finalise our PowerPoint and get ready for our presentation			Everyone	Monday Oct 18th.

4th group meeting

Type of meeting		4th Group Meeting
Note taker		Brittany
Time of meeting		1 hour
Attendees		Rajas, Brittany, Emmanuelle, Briar
AGENDA TOPICS: Negotiation
Discussion
·      Each stakeholders discussed terms and conditions.
·      We began negotiation process between individual stakeholders. Farmer and Clean H20: Clean H20 offers 1 year warranty. Also offers group discounts: 6 farmers= no installation fees and offer 1 pump for free. Also provide 10 trees for planting per pump (in agreement with farmer and citizen). Citizen and Clean H20: our pumps will be colored green.
Conclusions
·      After the first negotiation process, we can up with a couple solutions to our problem.
·      For the next meeting our goal is to conclude our negotiation
Action items			Person responsible	Deadline
·Each member will be ready to conclude negotiation process			Everyone	Thursday Oct 14th.

Clean H20, individual meeting, one hour fifteen minutes

Clean H20 presidents met to discuss the terms and conditions of their company. Presidents, Brittany and Rajas, determined the following:
Clean H20 offers free consultation for farmers. During the consultation we will evaluate the property, the level of contaminant in the run-off water, and also educate the farmer how to decrease contaminants. Also during this time we will explain how our pumps work and the prices associated with.
We offer a 3 level pump system (listed from the most expensive to least)
      -Alpha used for run-off water containing more than 70% effluent. This is the most expensive pump but also offers the strongest filter.
      -Beta is our level 2 pump. It is used for run-off water containing 50% or more effluent and less than 70%. This pump is mainly used in the second stage of the pump process. We recommend to begin with Alpha and after 5 years we will re-evaluate the farm run-off water and if it has decreased below 70% the Alpha pump is downgraded to Beta (which at this point is more efficient because the run-off water has less contaminants).
     -Gamma is our level 3 pump. It is used for run-off containing less than 50% effluent.
Pricing
Installation fee: $1000.
Maintenance/ year fee: $600.
Pumps: Alpha: $2000. Beta: $1500. Gamma: $1000.
Warranty we offer 1 year warranty of our pumps. If the farmers are not completely satisfied with our products after 1 year we will offer a full refund of the cost for a small un-installation fee.

Preparation for Negotiation

Type of meeting		3rd Group Meeting
Note taker		Brittany
Time of meeting		2 hours
Attendees		Rajas, Brittany, Emmanuelle, Olivia, Briar
AGENDA TOPICS: Problem Solving
Discussion
·      As a group we discussed which form of action we would take to solve our problem. We decided to use dairy farms as our main farming issue.
·      Each member split into roles and discussed what plan of action is to be taken from their point of view
Conclusions
·      Each role will prepare terms for next meeting
·      Each role will be ready for negotiation
Action items			Person responsible	Deadline
·  Each member is to have terms and conditions ready for negotiation.			Everyone	Tuesday Oct 12th.
·   Group members will have met with role-play partners to determine terms and conditions			Everyone	Completed by next group meeting

Topic and group member roles

Second Meeting:

The purpose of the meeting is to determine our topic and individual roles.

Topic: Runoff of contaminants in to stream/rivers from farms.

Roles: individual of society - Briar & Emmanuelle.

Representative of NGO - Olivia

New Entrepreneurial company - Brittany & Rajas

The next step to find out which outcomes we are looking to solve.

Problems at a glance: brief research

4 main pollutants: nitrogen, phosphorus, sediment, fecal matter.

Herbicide used to be used: 245t and 24d, but now they just use 24d (an ingredient of agent orange)

Pests in general (rabbits) and chemicals to get rid of them

Modification of genome of marine animals

Destruction of plant life, encouraging growth of harmful plants.

Limited swimming in rivers/streams due to pollution

Pollution of drinking water

Could affect NZ economy because of tourism, NZ has a clean green image and pollution destroys this

Destruction of natural resources causing economical repercussion for future generations

Goal for next meeting:

Complete research and goals

Determine outcomes and solutions

First group meeting minutes

Sustainability Class Meeting – Group 4 – Week 1
Minutes			23-09-2010	2.00pm		classroom
Date/ Time/ Place of next meeting: 30-09-2010/ 12.30pm/ Outside classroom
Type of meeting		Initial group meeting
Note taker		Briar
Time of meeting		½ hour
Attendees		Rajas, Brittany, Emmanuelle, Olivia, Briar
Agenda topics: Topic of assignment
Discussion
·          We discussed the overall objective of the assignment
·          We picked two topics that were of interest to the group; Run-off contaminants into streams/rivers from farms, Waste generated at/ around AUT students and staff.
Conclusions
·          We chose two topics to initially research, once we know more about each topic, we can decide which one has the most potential for us to do our assignment on
Action items					Person responsible		Deadline
·          Check with teacher whether the company in the project is meant to be fictional or not					Everyone		In next class
·          Each person is briefly researching the two chosen topics, who the problem affects (individuals in society), what NGO’s or advocate groups that might be interested in the issue, what type of entrepreneurial group might be interested, what is already being done to help solve the problem (If anything), and a briefly some possible solutions/ potential for change (need to keep in mind who change will benefit and how the venture is going to be financed etc..)					Everyone		Next group meeting