Geo

Volume 26 • Number 2 • May 2013

Contents

Using sUstainable Practices to imProve Food and Water secUrity .................2-4

areas oF World HUnger (FigUre) ..................................................................2

activities ........................................................................................................3

stUdent activities...........................................................................................4

case stUdy – aaces (aUstralia aFrica commUnity engagement scHeme) ...........4

Fast Facts: malaWai ......................................................................................4

case stUdy: cadecom .......................................................................................5-6

For commUnity oWned innovative and sUstainable Food secUrity ..............5-6

Food secUrity is a groWing Problem in aFrica (FigUre) .........................5

stUdent activities ....................................................................................6

geosoUnding......................................................................................................7-8

PUre canterbery .........................................................................................7-8

canterbUry region - neW Zealand (FigUre) ...................................................8

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Using Sustainable Practices To Improve Food And Water Security

By Janeen MurphyCaritas Australia

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Drinking water, food, and sanitation are all basic human needs. Yet,according to the United Nations World Food Program, one in sevenpeople go to bed hungry every night. In fact, hunger kills more peoplethan HIV/ AIDS, malaria and tuberculosis combined. In addition, some884 million people do not have access to clean drinking water, of these,468 million live in Asia, and 328 million live in Sub-Saharan Africa. Furthermore, in excess of 1 billion people make a three to seven hour journey on foot just to collect water, the weight of it carried on their heads is commonly 20kg, and these journeys are often dangerous.

SouthSudan

Libya

2012Proportion of total population undernourished, 2010-12 The map shows the prevalence of undernourishment in the total population as of 2010 – 2012. The indicator is an

estimate of the percentage of the population having access to an amount of energy from food insufficient to maintain a healthy life. Further information is available at www.fao.org/publications/sofi/en/

Source: FAO, IFAD and WFP. 2012. The State of Food Insecurity in the World 2012: Economic growth is necessary but not sufficient to accelerate reduction of hunger and malnutrition. Rome.

© 2012 World Food Programme

The designations employed and the presentation of material in the maps do not imply the expression of any opinion whatsoever on the part of WFP concerning the legal or constitutional status of any country, territory or sea area, or concerning the delimitation of frontiers.

* The Line of Control in Jammu and Kashmir agreed on by India and Pakistan is represented approximately by a dotted line. The final status of Jammu and Kashmir has not yet been agreed on by the parties.

** A dispute exists between the governments of Argentina and the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland concerning sovereignty over the Falkland Islands (Malvinas).

*** Final boundary between the Republic of Sudan and the Republic of South Sudan has not yet been determined.

It costs on average just US 25 cents a day to feed a hungry child and change her life forever.

While food is the most basic of human

needs required for survival, on average, 1 in 8 people

go to bed hungry each night.

Hunger kills, maims, reduces IQ,

lowers wages, reduces school attendance andundermines economic

growth.

(U.K.)

***

No dataVery low

undernourishment

<5%

Moderately low undernourishment

5-14%

Moderately high undernourishment

15-24%

High undernourishment

25-34%

Very high undernourishment

35% and over

Missing or insufficient

comparative data

***

State of Palestine

Food and water security means that people living in a specific area have a dependable supply of both to enable them to survive. The WorldFood Summit of 1996 defined food security as ‘existing when all people,at all times, have physical, social and economic access to sufficient, safeand nutritious food to meet dietary needs for a productive and healthy life’.It is imperative to achieve food and water security because lives are atstake. It is predicted that since water resources are often shared betweencountries, the management, ownership and future use of water will lead to further conflicts, thus exacerbating food and water insecurity. In the years 2000-2008, 54 separate conflicts occurred around the globe, due to conflicting demands for a water resource. Furthermore, the world population is predicted to grow from 7 billion in 2012 to 8.3 billion in 2030 and to 9.1 billion in 2050.By 2030, food demand is predicted to increase by 50 per cent (70 per centby 2050). The main challenge facing the agricultural sector is not onlygrowing 70 per cent more food in 40 years, but making 70 per cent more

The consequences of food and water insecurity and poor sanitation are malnutrition, disease, and death.The lack of access to food and water security is caused by both naturaland man-made factors. • Natural factors include the amount of rainfall; and natural disasters such as earthquakes, tsunamis, hurricanes, and volcanic eruptions. • Man-made factors include government policies on agricultural support, the amount of money spent on infrastructure to support agriculture and food distribution and the increase in bio-fuel production. Figure 1: Areas Of World Hunger

Source: World Food Programme

food available to households. Food prices are also subject to fluctuationsin global trade. A global food crisis has been growing since 2008, resulting in many riots and deaths that often go unreported in our media.People simply are unable to cope if they have to spend 50-80 per cent of their income on food.Lack of food and water security is not an issue of production or avail-ability, but one of access and distribution. Roughly 30 per cent of the foodproduced worldwide – approximately 1.3 billion tons – is lost or wastedevery year. This means that the water used to produce the food is alsowasted. Agricultural products move along extensive value chains and pass through many hands – farmers, transporters, store keepers, food processors, shopkeepers and consumers – as they travel from ‘field to fork’. Producing 1kg of rice, for example, requires about 3,500L of water, 1kg of beef approximately 15,000L and a cup of coffee about 140L . This dietary shift is a major cause of increasing water consumption over the past 30 years.

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Using Sustainable Practices To ImproveFood And Water Security (cont'd) Furthermore, although 43 per cent of farmers are female and as efficient as male farmers, their productivity is lower because they do not have the same access as men to agricultural inputs, services and productive resources which includes water.Finally, previous agricultural water management practices have caused wide-scale changes in ecosystems which have undermined the provision of a wide range of ecosystem services. The external cost of damage from the agricultural sector to people and ecosystems plus the clean-up processes is significant. In the United States of America, for instance, the estimated cost is US$9–20 billion per year. Agriculture contributes to climate change through its share of greenhouse gas emissions, which in turn affects the planet’s water cycle, thus adding another layer of uncertainties and risks to food production. It is predicted that South Asia and Sub Saharan Africa are the most

Activities1. Look at the list below. Can you find some examples for each of the natural and man-made factors? • Natural factors include the amount of rainfall and natural disasters such as earthquakes, tsunamis, hurricanes, and volcanic eruptions; • Man-made factors include government decisions on supporting agriculture, the amount of money spent on infrastructure to support agriculture and food distribution and the increase in bio-fuel production. For example, using grains to make bio-fuel decreases the supply of grains available for human consumption and increases the market price of these grains. It is predicted that in South Asia, an additional 32.5 million people will fall into extreme poverty because of the higher food prices due to bio-fuel production.

2. Human Rights and the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) ‘Everyone has the right to a standard of living adequate for the health and well-being of oneself and of one’s family, including food, clothing, housing, medical care and necessary social services. This includes the right to security in the event of unemployment, sickness, disability, widowhood, old age or other scenarios leading to a lack of livelihood in circumstances beyond one’s control.’ (article 25, paragraph 1) Every human being has: • the right to be free from hunger; • the right to adequate food; • the right to clean, safe drinking water.

Millennium Development Goals • Goal One: Eradicate extreme poverty and hunger (Right to an adequate standard of living)

° Target 1.C of MDG 1 aims to ‘halve, between 1990 and 2015, the proportion of people who suffer from hunger’. According to the MDG Report for 2011, the proportion of people in the developing world who went hungry in 2005-2007 remained stable at 16 per cent, despite significant reductions in extreme poverty.

° The MDGs are interlinked – progress in one goal underpins progress in others. Supporting sustainable agriculture and rural development helps increase food production and reduces poverty and hunger. Food and nutritional security are the foundations of a decent life, a sound education and the achievement of the MDGs. • Goal Seven: Ensure environmental sustainability (Right to Environmental Health, Right to water and sanitation)

vulnerable regions and will experience climate change-related food shortages by 2030.Food and water insecurity are major issues, which serve to reinforce and keep people in the cycle of poverty, and, in the longer term, contribute to wider global instability. At Caritas Australia, we believe that it is possible to use sustainablepractices to improve food and water security. We see the need for it inthe places where we work, but also believe, as human beings and as partof Catholic Social Teaching (CST), that we all have a responsibility to act on and implement these solutions.The CST value, ‘Stewardship of Creation’ says that we must all respect, care for and share the resources of the earth, which are vital for thecommon good of people. Care for the environment is a common and universal duty, and ecological problems call for a change of mentality and the adoption of new sustainable ways of living. Our development programs are attentive to environmental concerns and seek to promote care for the earth and its resources.

Points for discussion: • Do you think all human rights are being met? What are the challenges? • Discuss the previous cartoon. What point is the cartoonist trying to make? Was s/he successful? • Look at the Universal Declaration for Human Rights and the Millennium Development Goals. How many times is food and water mentioned? Does the world have a plan for increasing food and water security?

3. Just Images? Look at the image to the right. To the right, is a typical image about the majority world. But is it a just an image? Using the Caritas AACES case study (see next article), consider the following points: • What stereotypical images/ arguments does the image provoke? • How does this differ from the image presented in the Caritas case studies? • How are the program’s participants, ‘agents of their own change’? • What impact have the programs had on food and water security? How might this have been different with a charity approach, rather than a justice approach?

4. Further ideas/activities • Food Quiz: http://www.caritas.org.au/act/primary-school-teaching-resources • Food Security Activity: http://www.caritas.org.au/act/secondary-school- teaching-resources • Global Reality Meal: http://www.caritas.org.au/act/secondary-school- teaching-resources • Sustainable Agriculture Activities: http://www.caritas.org.au/act/secondary- school-teaching-resources • Food Security and Sustainable Agriculture: http://www.caritas.org.au/learn/ global-poverty-issues/food-security-and-sustainable-agriculture • Water Fact Sheet: http://www.caritas.org.au/act/secondary-school-teaching- resources • Water Audit: http://www.caritas.org.au/act/secondary-school-teaching-resources • Water and Sanitation Case Study – Mozambique: http://www.caritas.org. au/docs/secondary-school-resources/water-case-studies.pdf?sfvrsn=9 • Water and Sanitation Case Study – Mozambique video: http://www. caritas.org.au/projectcompassion/videos/primary-water • Food Case Study – Mozambique video: http://www.caritas.org.au/ projectcompassion/videos/primary-food • MDGs: Blueprint for a better world: http://www.blueprintforabetterworld.org/ • Research Paper – Food the Fundamental Right: http://www.caritas.org.au/ docs/publications-and-reports/food-the-fundamental-right.pdf?sfvrsn=10 • Water and Sanitation: http://www.caritas.org.au/learn/global-poverty-issues/ water-and-sanitation • Caritasnews Summer 2012: Water: http://www.caritas.org.au/docs/ publications-and-reports/caritas-news---2012-summer.pdf?sfvrsn=8 • Making a Tippy Tap Activity: http://www.caritas.org.au/act/secondary- school-teaching-resources

NB: For links that take you to the schools resources webpage, filter‘water’or‘food’tofindtherelevantresource.

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Using Sustainable Practices To ImproveFood And Water Security (cont'd)

stUDeNt Activities

1. Find a definition for: • Food security • Water security • Potable water • Non-Government Organisation (NGO)

2. Describe the pattern of moderately high to very high under- nourishment as shown on the World Food Program Hunger Map in 2012.

3. Explain how a natural disaster, such as an earthquake or tsunami, would result in food and water security.

4. A transboundary resource is a resource that crosses political boundaries. Using information from the article, explain how this will create conflict and water insecurity.

5. According to the article, what factors would lead to a global food crisis?

6. The article highlights food wastage and the extensive value chain that food passes through as examples of issues associated with access and distribution of food. Can you think of any other reasons that would create issues with access and distribution? (Hint:Considerinfrastructure,servicesandgeographicallocation).

7. Often, it is the women’s role to access food and water for the household in developing countries. Why would education of women improve food security in these countries?

8. According to the article, how has agricultural production impacted on climate change, and then what are the flow on effects of climate change on the production of food.

ReseARcH

9. Select a grain such as corn, and explain how the cultivation of this grain for biofuels, has created food security issues in a particular country. What specific human factors have created this issue?

eXteNsiON ActivitY

10. Which definition do you feel best describes water security? Discuss the strengths and weaknesses of the following definitions. In your discussion, consider how inclusive each definition is, and how it could be measured. • ‘The capacity of a population to ensure that they continue to have access to potable water’ (Wikipedia) • ‘…water security represents a unifying element supplying humanity with drinking water, hygiene and sanitation, food and fish, industrial resources, energy, transportation and natural amenities, all dependent upon maintaining ecosystem health and productivity’ (UNEP).

11. Another human factor that influences food security is the ownership of land. Use the internet to research this relationship and find examples where foreign land ownership in developing countries has created further issues with food security.

The Australia Africa Community Engagement Scheme (AACES) is an AusAID program working with Australian Non-Government Organisations (NGOs) to promote its work in Africa. AACES aims to contribute to measurable outcomes for people in three priority sectors: water and sanitation, women and children’s health, and food security.

Case Study – AACES (Australia Africa Community Engagement Scheme)Where activities refer to using a Caritas AACES case study, please use this article (see next page(s), 5-6) on CommunityOwnedInnovativeandSustainableFoodSecurityinMalawi,by Martin Mazinga.

Fast FactsMalawi • Human Development Index: ranked 171

• Life expectancy: 54 years

• Population: approx. 14.9 million

• Poverty: Malawi is one of the world’s poorest countries, with three quarters of the population surviving on less than $2 per day.

• Malnutrition is a universal problem in Malawi affecting all districts. It has direct links to education (delayed enrolment, poor school performance, absenteeism), health (slow recovery when one is sick, reduces the body’s immunity, increases the risk of disease and death, poor pregnancy outcomes), and economic growth.

• Educational attainment is worse than any other country in Sub-Saharan Africa. Less than 25 per cent of children remain in school up to the 8th grade. Most have to stay at home to work for their families. Only two per cent of primary students have basic numeracy skills. Malawi also has one of the highest students to teacher ratios in the world at around 80:1, as well as a classroom ratio of 100:1.

• HIV/AIDS: nearly 1 million people suffer from HIV/AIDS in Malawi and 550,000 children have lost one or both parents to the virus.

• Signs of progress: despite these problems, several social indicators have shown improvement. Life expectancy has increased from under 40 years in 2000 to 55 years in 2011, whilst the prevalence of HIV/AIDS has fallen from 14 per cent to 11 per cent over the same period.

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One in seven people go to bed hungry every night, according to the United Nations World Food Program. Hunger kills more people than AIDS, malaria and tuberculosis combined. The problem is worst in developing countries like Malawi. The problem has implications beyond the borders of Malawi as it threatens the dignity of people. According to the Malawi vulnerability assessment report (MVAC June 2012) 1.6 million people are food insecure this year.Food security has emerged as a political buzzword in conversations about stability in the developing world. The Bingu Wa Muntharika regime, among other things, placed much emphasis on the food security issue, considering the vitality of food on peoples’ livelihood.Strides were made in the attainment of food security but there were also some deficits with the input subsidy program, of which it is not the mandate of this paper to discuss.All people have the right to decide what they eat and to ensure that food in their community is healthy and accessible for everyone and all the time. This is the basic principle of food security on which the Catholic Development Commission in Malawi (CadeCom) draws her strengths.Figure 2: Food Security Is A Growing Problem In Africa Source: CadeCom Library

Carsterns Mulume, National Secretary for CADECOM says ‘as CadeCom we have strived over the years to bridge the food deficit gap in the communities nationwide, not only through provision of food aid when hunger strikes, but also by capacitating the communities to be resilient to food insecurity shocks.’ He adds to say ‘we have a number of food security programs in the country funded by different donor partners such as Trocaire, Caritas Australia, Caritas Sweden and Cordaid among others.Trocaire is funding food security programs in Dedza, Mangochi and Chikwawa districts, where over 5000 small-holder farmers have been equipped with irrigation skills and equipment to cultivate twice or thrice a year. ‘The small-holder farmers we are working with in Mua and Mganja

Case Study: CadeComFor Community Owned Innovative And Sustainable Food Security

By Martin K MazingaNationalProgrammeCoordinator

CadeCom

in Dedza are food secure throughout the year; hunger has been buried in the archive, even in the event of prolonged dry spells, our communities are able to use natural wetlands and available water resources to cushion their maize and beans production’ says Patrick Namakhoma, Dedza diocese CadeCom director.CadeCom with her donor partners are joining hands in exploring how small farmers in Malawi can embrace innovative and radical steps in attaining food security in an attempt of fixing the broken food and farming systems which have for years been traditional and affected by the global climatic changes. ‘We pride ourselves that in our quest tohelp communities put food on their tables, we are also cognizant of the environmental issues; we promote climate smart agriculture which is environmentally friendly at the same time keeping in mind the strength the communitieshave as agents of their own change,’ says Carsterns Mulume.Caritas Australia, with funding from the Australian government (AusAID) is supporting CadeCom in a food security, water, sanitation and hygiene program in Phalombe, Dowa, Rumphi, and Mzimba where over 8,000 households are directly benefiting through the provision of agricultural inputs extension and water and hygiene services. The program, acronymed, AACES (Australian African Engagement Scheme) has already increased food production levels of over 1500 households in Dowa where 60 per cent of the program participants are vulnerable women. They were provided with maize and groundnuts seeds for food security and nutritional support, eight boreholes were drilled in traditional authority Chakhaza and villages’ savings and loans associations established.Last year the world population reached seven billion. It is a known fact that population growth is outpacing food production, particularly with the four crops that provide the bulk of the world’s nutrition: wheat, rice, maize and soybeans. ‘It is for this reason that we in CadeCom are promoting crop diversification so that we reduce reliance on one crop’ says Melina Mtonga, National Program Officer for DRR and Food Security at CadeCom.As studies have shown previously, there’s little land left to convert to farming, water supplies are drying up, and global warming is wreaking havoc on the growing seasons and contributing to weather extremes that destroy crops. ‘Atpolicy level, it is disheartening that as a nation we are grappling with food insecurity when we have plenty of water and irrigable land, which we are watching dry up through global warming without using them. Malawi has 21 percent of its land covered by fresh water but has no national irrigation scheme which can be put on the world map similar to those in Israel or Egypt,’ bemoans Carsterns Mulume. ‘There is just such a tremendous disconnect, with manypeople including some policy makers not understanding the highly dangerous situation we are in,’ concludes Mulume.

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‘The food system must be transformed. By 2050, there will be nine billion people on the planet and demand for food will have increased by 70 per cent,’ wrote Robert Bailey, Oxfam’s senior climate advisor. Oxfam in Malawi is supporting CadeCom in disaster preparedness and response, a program which aims at advocating for policy reforms in disaster risk management. Disasters affect food security in Malawi, and the nation needs to take deliberate efforts in disaster preparedness, early warning signs, district contingency plans as well as budgetary allocations todisaster preparedness.Preparedness helps us to cast our thoughts ahead of timeand avoid reactive response to disasters. ‘Climate changeis expected to add another 10-20 per cent to the total of hungry people by 2050,’ according to a United Nations World Food Program report issued last month. ‘By 2050we can expect to have 24 million more malnourishedchildren as a result of erratic weather – 21 per cent morethan without climate change.’ CadeCom has adopted an integrated approach to development where issues of food security, water, sanitation and hygiene, environmental conservation, climate change sensitization, gender, HIVand AIDS and governance issues are enhanced. In Balaka, Blantyre and Mzimba districts CadeCom with financial support from Caritas Australia is implementing anIntegrated Community Development (ICD) programme which has seen households improve their food security, increase income resource base through village savings and loans (VSLAs) and adopting environmental friendly techniques. The ICD program is a model of integrated development par excellence, a best practice for emulationby other development partners in the country.The issue of food security borders on poverty levels in the country. Poverty is the state for the majority of Malawians.Why is this? Is it enough to blame poor people for theirown predicament? Have they been lazy, made poordecisions, and been solely responsible for their plight?What about their government? Have they pursued policies that actually harm successful development? In the face of such enormous poverty poor people are often powerless.As a result, a few get wealthy while the majority struggle. ‘CadeCom will never tire in working with the government and other stakeholders, like CISANET, in protecting the plight of poor Malawians, among whom we work’ concludes Mulume.In conclusion CadeCom believes that meaningful long-term alleviation of hunger or food insecurity is rooted in the alleviation of poverty, as poverty leads to hunger. Hungeris a terrible symptom of poverty, in the same way asdisasters are a miscarriage of development. ‘If efforts are only directed at providing food, or improving food production or distribution, then the structural root causesthat create hunger/food insecurity, poverty and dependency would still remain.While resources and energies are deployed

Case Study: CadeCom (cont'd)For Community Owned Innovative And Sustainable Food Security

to relieve hunger through technical measures such as improving agriculture, and as important as these are, inter- related issues such as poverty means that political solutions are likely required as well for meaningful and long term hunger alleviation,’ says Mulume. In the wake of foodinsecurity and poverty threats CadeCom hopes the Malawi Growth and Development Strategy II (MGDS II) and Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) will remain our torchbearers in illuminating our development agenda tofood security.‘Through our farmers’ clubs and associations nationwide,which eventually develop and evolve into cooperativesCadeCom will continue promoting food security and general livelihood activities so that communities have the knowledgeand means to protect themselves from food insecurity andnuance vectors that are likely to cause a significant risk to their health and well being as dignified human beings’ concludes Carsterns Mulume. stUDeNt Activites 1. How does Mazinga define food security in the article? How does this differ from the definition above, and which do you feel is more relevant to the people experiencing food insecurity?

2. What would be an example of a food insecurity shock?

3. Identify two differing strategies undertaken in Malawi to manage the future impacts of food insecurity.

4. Why would diversification away from the growing of wheat, rice, maize and soyabeans be promoted as a successful strategy to avoid food insecurity in Malawi?

5. National Secretary for CADEOM, Casterns Mulume believes that the building of a national irrigation scheme would improve food security in Malawi. Identify two positives and two negatives of this scheme. Research other national irrigation schemes, such as the Aral Sea in Uzbekistan, to provide specific information here.

6. What impact could climate change have on food security in Malawi?

7. What is the relationship between food and water security and poverty? Considering the statistical data provided on Malawi, would the country be considered developing? Use this evidence to explain why poverty in Malawi could lead to food and water security issues?

8. Millenium Development Goal One and Eight are related to food security. After reading through the explanations in the article, how would achieving these goals reduce food security?

9. Can you see evidence of Millenium Development Goal One and Eight in the Malawi Case Study? Explain why the strategies outlined in the article would or would not help Malawi in achieving these goals.

10. How are the participants in the CADECOM project in Malawi ‘agents of their own change’? Why would this be important in improving food security?

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by Nick HutchinsonGeographyEducatorandWriter

MacquarieUniversity

GeoSounding

Pure Canterbery The great French geographer Paul Vidal de la Blache believed that the human geographer’s primary task was to account for distinctive genres de vie, lifestyles, or, modes of existence set in a landscape. Nothing was more distinctive to subsequent New Zealand geographers than the patchwork quilt of rectangular paddocks of cereals, crops and fat lamb pastures that comprised the Canterbury Plain between 1890 and 1990. A patchwork delineated by water races, wire fences and impressive shelterbelts of English gorse, Monterey Pine (Pinus Radiata) and Monterey cypress, from California, planted to protect the paddocks from desiccating north-westerly winds. Much has changed since. At Camelot Robotic Dairy farm, near Ashburton, mid Canterbury, the robotic system gives 500-odd unusually large framed Friesian and Swiss Brown cows the option of being milked up to four times a day. A microchip collar tracks their movements as they move between pasture,the dairy and rewards of straw and water in the loafing yard. The microchip opens the gate when the cow needs to visit the dairy. Inside laser sensors direct the cups to individual teats. Milking information is displayed on a computer monitor.At Dunsandel, half way between Ashburton and Christchurch Synlait opened a $100 million shiny, ultra-modern milk powder factory in 2008, the largest infant formula facility of its type in the Southern Hemisphere.In 2010, Chinese company Bright Dairy, a Shanghai-based enterprise, bought a controlling stake in Synlait so that container loads of cans containing Pure Canterbury infant formula are now shipped off to China.This year a large-scale dairy farm has been given the go ahead in the Mackenzie Basin, southwest of Ashburton, around Twizel, despite opposition from environmental groups and from Ngai Tahu the principal Maori iwi(tribe) of the southern region of New Zealand. Huge central pivot irrigation systems pump water from the fluvioglacial gravels to provide pastures for some 1,400 dairy cows. So severe is the north Otago climate that the cows will need to be wintered off the property. The battle to establish this enterprise took two years in the courtsystem and it may offer a precedent for further dairy farming in the district. A more optimistic venture tofarm 18,000 dairy cattle further down the valley that involved stall feeding in cubicles over winter was denied permission to proceed.Rather ironically, Ngai Tahu Holdings Corp, the commercial company owned by the iwi is also planning the development of three dairy farms in former forested country at Eyrewell Forest, north of the Waimakarri River, close to Christchurch, where irrigation pipes will supply river water to the pastures. The iwi is concerned enough about the environment to develop these farming ventures

in conjunction with experts from Christchurch’s Lincoln University.Dairy farming is big business in this part of New Zealand. Although many farmers still grow wheat and barley and high value specialist crops such as radish and Asian greens, dairying has proliferated under central pivot irrigation and rotary dairy systems. In 1990 there were 20,000 hectares in Canterbury under irrigation and in dairy production. In 2012 the relevant figures are an order of magnitude larger with 200,000 hectares irrigated and in dairy production. In the past two or three years dairy farming has boomed in this part of the world. Land prices and cattle prices have risen commensurately and dairy farming is still an attractive financial proposition.Of course there are environmental consequences connected to this expansion of dairy cattle numbers. The distinctive mixed crop and livestock farming landscape referred to above had a number of advantages. A typical farm in the 1980s had substantial herds of breeding ewes feeding off pasture, wheat stubble and green weeds that spring up in the newly ploughed paddocks. The sheep fertilise the soil and a rotation of root crops, legumes, clover, lucerne and fallowing revitalise the soil and replace nitrogen and other elements. Farm activities were income supplementary dependent on the oscillations of meat and grain prices, and, work complementary. When the intensive periods of grain production occurred on farm then livestock needed little attention and vice versa.Today, mixed crop and livestock farms harvest grass grown as a cash crop that is sold to dairy farmers assilage thus removing valuable nutrients from the soiland interrupting the nitrogen cycle. Dairy farmers have further problems with the nitrogen cycle. Animal wastes add excessive nitrate ions and ammonium ions to rivers and groundwater systems. Scientists from Lincoln University say that there is evidence of an increasinglong-term trend of nitrate in groundwater. A 2009 studyby Environment Canterbury revealed that only 43 percent of all Canterbury dairy farms were fully compliant with the standards set for the discharge of dairy effluents. Further, Canterbury Plain river systems have been degraded both in terms of water quality and waterquantity with significant contamination from faecal matter, nitrogen and phosphorus, shelter belts have been demolished with concomitant reductions in biodiversity and, most important of all, the agricultural sector missions of CO2 equivalent gases, largely from thebelches and backsides of cattle, represented 49.4 percent of all greenhouse gas emissions in New Zealand.The incursion of dairy farming into the Mackenzie Basin is particularly disturbing. The Basin is a high inter-montane dry area floored by fluvioglacial outwash deposits and

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GeoSounding (cont'd)covered by brown tussock grasses set against the backdrop of the snow-covered Southern Alps. The braided riversand moraine-dammed lakes are habitats for important native birds, the most famous of which is the black stilt, which is one of the rarest waders in the world. It is an area of outstanding natural beauty, a quintessential New Zealand landscape, an area impacted on by people but a region in a nice balance between human occupancy, whether pakeha or Ngai Tahu, whether seen in terms of forest clearing and hydro-power development, and the maintenance of a surrounding awe-inspiring and irreplaceable scenic resource. The Aoraki-Mt Cook National Park and the Ruataniwha Conservation Parkare well protected but the Basin is hardly a natural landscape because it encompasses the farms, and, townships of Tekapo and Twizel, the hydro-power infrastructure, wilding pines (the spread of exoticconifers), introduced hawkweed and patches of semi-desert like bare ground in the drier and lower parts of the Basin. Nevertheless, it does provide an impressive foreground, an aesthetic picture frame, for the Southern Alps. It does allow ecological and geomorphological processes to proceed in the Basin. Intensive dairyfarming and conversion of the land to irrigated pasture threaten the picturesque qualities and the ecological integrity of Mackenzie Country.It is probably apocryphal but Chinese tourists are said to be able to pay for their trip to New Zealand should they be allowed to fill their suitcases with milk powder on their return journey. Chinese demand for dairy products is increasing rapidly. In the four years since the 2008 Free Trade Agreement was signed between the two countries New Zealand dairy exports to China increased in value from $500 million to $2 billion. By 2019, the ever-reducing tariffs of dairy products will be reduced to virtually zero. The young New Zealander that came totry his or her hand at mixed crop and livestock farming,from North Island, thirty or forty years ago hasbeen replaced by some robots and a successionof dairy farm workers on Canterbury dairyfarms with temporary work permitsfrom as far away as the Philippinesand Latin America particularlyChile. Such is the power ofthe market. Although,Vidal would add thatthe natural endowmentsof the Canterbury Plain andMackenzie Basin present a rangeof possibilities for people to make use of.

Figure 3: Canterbery Region - New Zealand Source: Wikipedia Commons