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Andrew Dickens: We need to save our fertile land for farming, not housing

Author
Andrew Dickens,
Publish Date
Mon, 13 May 2019, 11:59AM
We’re intending to build 20,000 to 25,000 houses all over the rare and precious naturally fertile land in this country. This is madness. Photo / Getty Images.
We’re intending to build 20,000 to 25,000 houses all over the rare and precious naturally fertile land in this country. This is madness. Photo / Getty Images.

Andrew Dickens: We need to save our fertile land for farming, not housing

Author
Andrew Dickens,
Publish Date
Mon, 13 May 2019, 11:59AM

COMMENT

It was fascinating this morning hearing Greg Campbell, the CEO of Ravensdown, the fertiliser company talking with Mike Hosking.

Ravensdown and fertilisers and farmers have been in the gun recently because of the leaching of nitrogen into our waterways.

James Cameron got stuck into them last week. Greenpeace has demanded the Government ban chemical nitrogen and it put up billboards accusing Ravensdown and its competitor Ballance Agri-Nutrients of polluting rivers.

This is not completely wrong, but it is completely naive. To ban nitrogen would be to cut this country off at the knees.

This morning Greg Campbell reiterated stuff I learnt a long time ago at school, that maybe a new generation hasn’t heard. There is a belief that New Zealand is God's own country. That its soils are fertile and it is naturally a land of plenty. All of which couldn’t be further from the truth.

New Zealand is a relatively new piece of rock thrust out of the sea by tectonic forces. While areas, where there was volcanic activity, have become fertile large tracts of the country is rubble and marginal land.

The Māori were the first to make the land work and early European settlers, who didn’t know the knack for planting crops on our land, would have starved without the indigenous skill.

When I was growing up, much was made of the harshness of our soil. Sheep with the staggers, the Central North Island planted in Radiata because it was virtually the only crop that could survive the pumice laden soil. We also heard about the derring-do and the enormous work done by the top dresser pilots who made us fertile on the high country and low.

Now Greg Campbell has said in the past that some farmers have used too much nitrogen and that in the old days the use of urea and nitrogen was not as sophisticated as it is today. But today the company is using science to improve every day. It's a necessary evil

Greg Campbell this morning told us that 5 per cent of our land is naturally fertile, meaning 95 per cent is crap. Without fertilisers, which are always nitrogen-based, most of us wouldn’t be living here. We need to remember that.

When Greg said that I had another thought. Last week talking about housing I had a couple of calls from the Pukekohe district. The volcanic soil there is basically thought to be the best in the country. Pukekohe is the salad bowl of this land. But a quick look at the Auckland District Plan should concern you. The most fertile area in the country is slated for urban development that will support 80,000 more people.

We’re intending to build 20,000 to 25,000 houses all over the rare and precious naturally fertile land in this country. This is madness.

Surely for an agriculture-based economy, the best land for the purpose should be identified and ring-fenced. Future generations will thank us more for that rather than a nitrogen ban.

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