Effluent compliance on dairy farms in the country's two biggest dairying regions has risen again.
The latest reports from Canterbury and Waikato regional councils show farmers in both regions are improving their environmental management.
The Waikato council says its recent helicopter monitoring flights confirm an ongoing drop in significant non-compliance of effluent resource consents and regulations.
A recent flight above Hamilton found a tenth of farms were significantly non-compliant, a drop from 27% two years ago.
In Huntly, a flight showed signifiancant non-compliance was just 9%.
Both figures are lower than last season's regional average of 12%.
Five more monitoring flights are planned for this dairying season to June.
Meanwhile, Canterbury Regional Council says 65% of dairy farms in that region fully complied with effluent discharge consents in the past season, up 6% from the previous season.
Serious non-compliance dropped about 1% to 8.4%, but just two years ago it was at 19%.
Ashburton, which has about a third of the region's dairy farms, recorded the highest level of compliance, at 75%.
Waitaki was the poorest performer of the 10 Canterbury districts at 50%, but is up from 27% compliance last season.
The compliance monitoring is carried out annually and includes an unannounced visit to assess the environmental performance of dairy farms.
A commissioner for the regional council Tom Lambie says minor non-compliance fell to 25.4%, from 33% last year.
He says the most common cause of non-compliance was ponding of effluent.
