FWFP System April Updates

Just before Easter, QCONZ released a new version of the FWFP system, featuring some significant changes! All in all, we’re quite happy with progress based on our understanding of the regulations as they stand. When we have clarity from the Government regarding their  “light touch” comment, we’ll make a judgment call on what changes, if any, will need to be considered looking to the future. As a matter of interest, we did a quick ring around of some of our major industry customers last week and
the strong message for us was that FWFP is an important development for reporting sustainability progress to the market and for maintaining a social license to operate, so we’re pressing on.

The major changes in the latest release: 

• Environment Canterbury Schedule 7 – a new system that allows actions to be tracked against Schedule 7 Objectives and Targets. This approach could be emulated for other Regions with similar (but different) requirements.
• PDF report – ongoing improvements here, but some major changes that maximise the way maps are presented and some new logic to show the details of all mapped items.
• Land Units – some significant changes here which make things a lot easier ie better editing and a simplified non-contiguous setup!
• MAPS – we’ve switched from Landscape view to Square, allowing more space for maps as a result.
• Summary Page – amazing how a new layout suddenly makes everything so much clearer! In case you don’t have a login, see an attached screenshot from our test farm!
• Support and Guidance – is taking shape now with a digital manual, heaps of how-to guides, and video tutorials. Go to https://support.freshwaterfarmplan.nz and take a look. Let us know if you have any suggestions for additional guides. We would welcome any ideas!

We’ll continuing to push forward and have another busy month planned with some new reporting around Good Farming Practices. We have some good ideas developing around how we can present a simple, easy-to-read report for farmers showing their GFP (with some commentary and their relationships with planned actions). The Mobile App and Intensive Winter Grazing are not yet ready but, with the FWFP report (and additional reporting capability) looking sharp now, these developments will have our full attention.