Big turnout expected for Effluent Expo

Nearly 40 exhibitors – with more expected – have been confirmed for the latest Effluent Expo being run by Waikato Regional Council, with support from DairyNZ.

And, going on previous years, hundreds of farmers will attend the event on October 17, from 9am to 3.30pm, at the Claudelands Conference and Exhibition Centre in Brooklyn Rd, Hamilton.

The expo – now in its sixth year – aims to build upon the success of previous events by providing an opportunity for farmers to engage with a range of industry professionals around effluent management and infrastructure.

The council sees ‘doing it once and doing it right’ as a great guiding philosophy when it comes to upgrading farm effluent management systems and the expo will help farmers do just that.

Taking a holistic approach to farm effluent management is promoted and the expo provides a one- stop-shop for water, effluent storage and effluent application advice.

“The event aims to help farmers to increase their effluent knowledge and have well-managed, fit-for-purpose effluent systems on their farms,” says council sustainable agriculture advisor Hamish Smith.

“Information will be available on a range of systems which will help ensure full compliance with relevant rules and good management practices in the region.”

Positive effort

Farming services team leader Stuart Stone says there’s a lot of very positive farmer effort going in on meeting effluent management rules, although compliance data for the last financial year shows there are still some gains required.

“The farming services team strongly appreciate the efforts individual farmers are making to lift their game on the compliance front, whether it’s having the right infrastructure in place or sufficiently trained staff to ensure infrastructure is working as it should. But our figures show the dairy sector in the Waikato still has some way to go overall.

“The data, in particular, reinforces the need for farmers to ensure they have adequate effluent storage to comply 365 days a year and this will continue to be a focus for our one-on-one work with farmers.

Relevant seminars

“However, the sector is making progress and the team will continue working closely with farming groups and individual farmers.”

The expo is free of charge to members of the public and, besides hosting stands from individual organisations, the expo will feature a number of relevant seminars throughout the day.

Seminar subjects include:

  • Waikato Regional Council monitoring
  • getting effluent storage volumes sorted
  • extracting value out of farm dairy effluent.

People will be able to visit the cafe onsite to purchase food and drinks.Plenty of parking will be available on site via gate 3.

More information on the expo is available at www.waikatoregion.govt.nz


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