Rural leader on a mission to help farmers minimise waste
South Taranaki farmer Trish Rankin will be hosting waste minimisation workshops for farmers in Ellesmere, Waimakariri, Christchurch and Geraldine between 16-19 June.
The day Trish bought a dairy farm with her husband Glen she burst into tears.
They had spent the last twenty years working hard to save and learn all they could about dairy farming, while raising their four boys.
Now, three years later, Trish is on a mission to protect that whenua/land by minimising waste and helping other farmers do the same.
“We [farmers] seem to get judged for our environmental footprint in everything we do. Every farmer I know is trying to do better, but it takes time, money and education,” Trish said.
Rural waste workshops in Waitaha/Canterbury
The focus of the workshops will be about getting farmers to think about their purchasing decisions. Instead of opting for products that could be wasted after a single use, she is encouraging farmers to choose sustainable products with Agrecovery stickers signalling they’re part of a recycling scheme.
Trish said her biggest hope is that after finishing a workshop, people would leave with the confidence to make one decision a month towards minimising and managing waste.
“This month it might be Fun Day Friday, where you take a load to the recycling depot and have a fish and chip lunch with your workers. That’s one change, and then next month you might look at doing something with your silage or baleage wrap or composting.”
Taranaki dairy farmer Trish Rankin is running workshops across Waitaha to help farmers minimise waste
Workshop details
Learn how to safely dispose of chemicals and reduce and recycle plastic and other on-farm waste on our rural waste prevention and management webpage.
RSVP: To attend the Christchurch CBD event, hosted by us at our Tuam St office, email us at events@ecan.govt.nz by Monday 16 June.
Workshops outside of Christchurch are being organised by catchment groups in the region. You can contact them directly for more details:
- Ellesmere, hosted by Ellesmere Sustainable Agriculture – 17 June david.tinaku@esai.co.nz
- Geraldine, hosted by Living Landscapes South Canterbury – 17 June Livinglandscapessc@gmail.com
- Waimakariri, hosted by Waimakariri Landcare Trust – 19 June waimakaririlandcare@gmail.com
From monthly skip bins to recycling pro
In 2017, Trish and Glen were sharemilking in Taranaki when they started noticing they had a skip bin of waste collected every month.
“I started to think — ‘how do we have this much rubbish on the farm, and it’s all going to landfill, there must be another option’.”
In 2019, through the Kellogg Leadership Programme, Trish began researching waste minimisation on farms and how a circular economy model could be developed in New Zealand.
She found growing requirements for manufacturers of on-farm products to be a part of a recovery scheme.
The missing link was that many farmers still didn’t know what they could recycle and how, because it hadn’t been well communicated, she said.
“The great thing about the workshops is people can share solutions. It’s not me telling people what to do—someone might have a solution for tractor batteries and someone else might know more about recycling bale wrap. That way we can learn from each other.”
Trish said many farmers were unaware they were already paying a product recovery levy.
“Let’s just say I buy a $1000 drum of alkaline. $75 of that might be a levy to get that collected, but you don’t know you’ve paid that and instead you’re paying more money to get it collected in your skip bin,” she said.
Farmers are trying to do better
There were many changes people could make to better our environment and sometimes that could feel overwhelming, which was why Trish suggested focusing on one goal at a time.
“The 'should be’ list can be very long in farming. You ‘should be’ doing better for your animals, for your people, for your climate. Sharing knowledge and experiences farmer-to-farmer, and breaking it down, is empowering,” Trish said.