Farm Environment Plans

You may have heard some talk about Freshwater Farm Plans, a concept introduced in the Government’s Essential Freshwater package.

Freshwater Farm Plans are likely some years away from being rolled out in Canterbury, so farmers aren't being asked to look into them yet.

What should be in an FEP?

Your resource consent for land use, water use or effluent discharge describes what information should be in your FEP.

This will include general information about your farming operation, identification of the environmental risks and mitigations, identification of good management practices, and possibly some zone-specific requirements. These may include:

• Irrigation management
• Nutrient management
• Soil structure preservation
• Mahinga kai protection
• Māori rock art protection (in South Canterbury)

If you have multiple consents that each require an FEP, then you should include all the requirements in one FEP. You do not need multiple FEPs.

Getting your FEP audited

An FEP audit is an independent assessment of how you are following your FEP, carried out by an approved auditor.

The date of your first audit will be determined by your resource consent or water supplier’s consent. Subsequent audit dates will depend on your audit grade, with higher grades meaning less frequent audits.

When your audit date is coming up, we will send you a reminder, but it’s your responsibility to contact an auditor and arrange the audit.

If you have received any advice or input from an auditor in any component of the preparation of an FEP or audit, including nutrient budgets, then the same auditor cannot audit that farm.

The auditor will visit your farm to verify your farming practices, check your records and paperwork, and either submit a FEP Audit report to us, or if appropriate, your water supplier, or irrigation scheme. You will also receive a copy of the FEP Audit Report with any required actions detailed for your reference.

If you have an FEP condition on your resource consent, or a resource consent held by an irrigation scheme on your behalf, that condition will require you to achieve an FEP audit grade of A or B. Having an A or B grade means you are compliant with this specific condition, but not necessarily with your resource consent. Use our consent search to check the full list of conditions for your consent. 

Use our Ready for Audit checklist (PDF File, 73.94KB) to make sure you have the evidence available to show your auditor.

Our approved FEP auditors follow the Canterbury Certified FEP Auditor Manual (PDF File, 2.44MB), as well as the FEP auditor guidance documents. These standards have been developed by Environment Canterbury with input from industry and FEP Auditors.

Resources

FEP templates

You can use our Farm Environment Plan Template (XLSM File, 1.41MB) to help with creating your FEP.

FEP auditors