A risk assessment approach for prioritising actions in farm environment plans with mahinga kai values

The project co-developed and produced a geospatial tool that is available through a webpage. The beta tool allows users (initially dairy farmers) to identify and prioritise management practices and mitigation options for water quality that are optimised to their farm by a typology data set, giving bespoke solutions for each farm. The tool also locates and presents the nearest or most appropriate water quality data set, so users understand their catchment context and the main issues to further prioritise the selection of on-farm actions.

Feedback on the beta version of this tool has been received from various end-user testing groups, including Dairy Environment Leaders (DEL), dairy farmers (during DairyNZ Farmers Forum 2021), rural professionals, and dairy company environmental/sustainability staff. Feedback was collected quantitively and qualitatively, with surveys suggesting general support for the tool, the approach to testing and the added value it brings to farm environment planning.

This tool is novel and designed to help users to target and prioritise the best water quality actions at the least cost. The tool achieves this by:

• Prioritising on farm actions based on contaminant reduction effectiveness
• Providing bespoke, farm specific prioritisation of actions based on each farm’s geophysical characteristics
• Giving confidence to act as each recommendation is backed up by peer reviewed science
• Providing up to date water quality information, allowing users to understand their local water quality challenges
• Providing further information for each action, so users have access to current best practice guides

The on-line beta version is going through user-interface development but in the meantime available via the following link: https://farmapt.dairynz.co.nz