Land development loans questioned

Press, 24 October 1980, Page 12

Land development loans questioned

By

OLIVER RIDDELL

in Wellington

Are land development encouragement loans profitable for New Zealand? Are the loans being administered by the Rural Bank and Finance Corporation in the best way? Are they susceptible to political -interference? Is the Government using its muscle to push them through the bank too quickly to give opponents the chance to question therh?' 3 These are issues now being discussed within other government : departments, local authorities, and other interested parties. Wise land use may be in conflict with land development, but land development seems to be getting all the c nphasis, and all the money. ; Land : development encouragement loans were introduced in the 1978 Budget as a measure to encourage an increase of livestock production. This policy is now being questioned by, among others, the Wildlife Service, the Ministry of Works and Development, the National Water and Soil Conservation Authority; 1 - the Commission for the Environment, and the ? , Nature , Conservation Council,-/.;. . The areas which farmers usually.'suggest as suitable for such loans are remnants .of scrub, forest, or.tussock. These remnants mostly still

exist because of the difficulty and cost of bringing them into production. In 1979-80, some 9400 ha of native bu5h,'93,600 ha of scrub and about 100,000 ha of open country were developed throughout New Zealand. In the Dunedin district of the Rural Bank, ’Some 60,700 ha of open country were developed; some 17,100 ha of scrub and brush weeds were developed in Auckland and Northland. What are the effects- of this development? The Rural Bank estimates an increase of between 10 and 20 per cent in stock carrying capacity. But. the question people are only just beginning to ask is— how long will the land so developed be able to carry increased numbers of stock? Some loans have been granted in areas susceptible to erosion. These areas include the soft mudstones of the King Country, Gisborne, Hawke’s Bay and Rangitikei. In-all four areas the local catchment authorities have, for many years, been doing work on farms to stop soil erosion, including.retirement of landfrom farming wherever necessary. _ . . ;■ Now, through incentives provided ; specially for this purpose, remnant: bush and scrub " is being cleared in

these and other areas. Some of this land is being cleared to its detriment, and the poor level of consultation between local catchment authorities and the Rural Bank- owes something to politicallnterference. - It is clear that a number of mother government agencies have come to feel that the Government, through the Minister in charge of the bank (Mr MacIntyre)-,' has been pressing the Rural Bank to speed up its processing of the loan applications, to the detriment of the caution being urged by other agencies. Where there is consultation between the local authority and the bank, it sometimes is insufficient to identify areas of concern.

There are also complaints that the Rural Bank is too secretive in its dealings. These have been voiced in Parliament by Opposition speakers probing over the Fitzgerald loan affair. But the same complaint is being made by conservation groups concerned over other individual loans. The bank and its Minister have continued to affirm the need to keep secret the affairs of individual clients. The result-of all this is that some areas are, being cleared that should not be,, or at least without protective measures being taken. One

example is the development of the gully along the bottom of Pigeon Bay on Banks Peninsula. Because a riparian strip-has not been left, soil erosion (particularly of the stream bank) is likely to be accelerated, with associated discharge of sediment on to the lowlands. The sedi-ment-laden water could be unfit for human as well -as stock consumption. High intensity rainfall occurs often in New Zealand — as on the Taieri Plains a couple of months ago. The Wairarapa deluge of 1977 badly eroded the hill country there and much of it cannot produce as much grass as before because of all the soil lost.

' Thin soil provides poor capacity to absorb and . store water. This means there is rapid runoff during heavy rain, with consequent flooding down country, as well as rapid drying off of pastures during periods of low rainfall and greater proneness to droughts; If the soil , goes, the grass cannot grow. Research in the Wairarapa has shown that areas there which were eroded as long ago as 1950 are today only producing, at best, 70 per cent of the dry matter a. year of similar, neighbouring areas, which have kept their original soil cover. Other areas for which land development encour-

agement loans have been granted include gullies and gorges. This country is steep and sometimes already eroded. When clothed in vegetation, these areas act as buffer between the stream -and surrounding land, allowing the rainfall runoff to enter the stream slowly and carrying little sediment. The development of these areas must result in more landslips, • increasing sediment within the river channels, and the need for more and expensive flood protection along the previously fertile valley btttoms. Gisborne contains a number of outstanding examples of the results of this sort of development in the past.

Areas proposed for development are often wildlife' refuges; scrub being burned off for land development- in Northland has been'-found to be an important habitat for -' kiwis. v -- ■ '. ■ Farmers have complained to the Rural Bank,*, sometimes through their members of Parliament or to- the Minister, about the time it takes . to process loan applications. Yet if this land subsequently begins to erode, then these farmers, •. but more especially their unfortunate neughbours downstream, will be asking the Government for help to clean up the' mess and prevent .it from becoming ’worse. j