58963 (2025). Hon Rachel Brooking to the Minister for the Environment

Written Question

Published date: 21 Jan 2026

Metadata

Document type:	Written Question
Parliament number:	54
Question number:	58963 (2025)
Question asked:	16 Dec 2025
Member asking:	Hon Rachel Brooking
Portfolio:	Minister for the Environment
Minister replying:	Hon Penny Simmonds
Answer received:	14 Jan 2026
Status:	Question Answered
Reply type:	Reply
Document ID:	WQ_58963_2025
Document guid:	ddcd2414-ff3d-4dea-9b70-d54dc65ac002

58963 (2025). Hon Rachel Brooking to the Minister for the Environment: What assessment, if any, has she made of the effectiveness of farm-level mitigations such as riparian planting on reducing nitrate levels?

Hon Penny Simmonds: I would point the Member towards research conducted by the Our Land and Water national science challenge which reviewed the effectiveness of all known and developing mitigations to reduce nitrate leaching (https://ourlandandwater.nz/wp-content/uploads/2022/11/Research-Brief-Assessing-the-effectiveness-of-on-farm-mitigation-actions.pdf). This showed that 45% more nitrogen would have entered rivers from dairy-farmed land between 1995 and 2015 if farmers hadn't changed their practices.