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Freshwater Farm Plan support

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Over time, freshwater farm plans are expected to become the central tool for farmers and growers to manage all their freshwater regulatory requirements.

Check out the freshwater farm plan area to answer any questions you may have. 

Freshwater Farm Plans
Certifiers and auditors Support materials and guidance

Support and guidance

We’ve developed a handy, printable info sheet with all the key information you’ll need to get started.

The Ministry for the Environment has been developing guidance to help with the implementation of freshwater farm plans. The guidance will help you understand how the freshwater farm plan system works and what you need to do.

Te Uru Kahika (Regional and Unitary Councils Aotearoa) has also developed some useful guidance.

This list will be updated if new guidance becomes available.

Maps

To meet the freshwater farm plan certification requirements, you’ll need to provide maps containing key information for your risk identification and action selection process.

Please see the maps section of MfE’s Developing a Freshwater farm plan guidance for a full list.

You may present the maps in a way that makes most sense to you, providing the requirements are met. This means you can decide on the form, number of maps, and the combination of features you display on each map.

We’ll soon be adding a tool to this page that will enable you to source maps for your farm plan. It is expected this will be available in October.

Certifiers and auditors

Freshwater farm plan certifiers have now been appointed for the Waikato region. A full list can be found on Assure Quality’s national register below.

Find a certifier

We recommend choosing a certifier that specialises in your farm type. More certifiers are being trained and will be added to this register once they meet the national and regional requirements.

Government owned assurance scheme provider AsureQuality is providing national freshwater farm plan certifier and auditor training. If you’re interested in becoming a freshwater farm plan certifier or auditor, please visit farmplancertifiers.nz.

In order to work as a certifier or auditor in the Waikato region, you’ll also need to complete supplementary regional training to build and demonstrate your understanding of the key issues in our region.

You can sign up for this training as either a certifier/auditor ($80) or farmer/developer ($20) at wrctraining.co.nz. Only prospective certifiers and auditors are required to pass the exam at the end of this course. Farmers and farm plan developers are welcome to use these modules to develop their understanding of farm planning.

Find out more about certifier and auditor training in this webinar recording