Ballance Agri-Nutrients develops advanced effluent management solution for dairy farmers across Aotearoa
5 February 2025 – Ballance Agri-Nutrients (Ballance), in conjunction with Plucks Engineering and Southwater, is developing an innovative dairy effluent management system designed to help farmers improve on-farm effluent practices and reduce environmental impact. The technology addresses a significant environmental and regulatory challenge in New Zealand’s dairy sector. In addition, the by-product of the system is an excellent nutrient and water source that can be recycled on farm.
“Incorrect disposal of effluent can land farmers with fines in the hundreds of thousands, and regulations restrict effluent application during rainy conditions, meaning farmers are often left with an issue to deal with,” says Stuart Kay, Innovation Lead at Ballance Agri-Nutrients.
“This technology is designed to be a reliable, sustainable solution, transforming waste into a resource that improves compliance and lowers risk. By providing control over water and nutrients, we’re offering a pathway for more responsible and effective farm management.”
This new effluent management system, first conceptualised in 2020, offers dairy farmers an easy way to retrofit a practical solution to meet both current and future effluent storage and regulatory demands. As regulations evolve, farmers often need to renew their consents and invest in upgrading effluent systems to ensure adequate storage, control, and mapping. Additionally, current regulations cap nitrogen application from effluent at 150 N/ha/year, meaning farmers must carefully manage their land area to avoid over application per hectare. This effluent system has been developed to aid farmers to specifically meet these requirements.
This advanced system assists farmers by separating the solids from liquids, leaving farmers with pretty much nothing but clean water coming out of the system. The effluent solids are captured, contained and slowly dewatered for later use giving farmers greater control over when they apply the nutrients to their land. The separated liquid can be reused and recycled, reducing the volume of fresh water being turned into effluent every day.
Plucks Engineering has been at the coal face of dairy effluent for nearly 30 years, so knows and understand the burden dairy farm effluent can impose. “We love what we have developed together with our partners which removes all the stress for the farmer and gives them complete control of their effluent from day one, while removing all the risk and liability,” says Neil Pluck, Managing Director at Plucks Engineering.
Southwater’s core business is the dredging of municipal and industrial pond slurries into high-capacity dewatering systems to separate the water from solids. The project with Ballance and Plucks is a natural extension of the approach but with critical steps in the process being dairy specific. The Southwater team is excited about contributing to a simple and cost-effective dairy effluent system to help farmers operations and protect our waterways.
This innovation has been supported by the Ministry for Primary Industries (MPI) under the Sustainable Food and Fibre Futures (SFF Futures) fund, which has an emphasis on developing long-term, sustainable agricultural practices.
Ballance, with its partners, is about to start rolling out the technology.
“We’ve secured resource consent for commercial field trials, which are currently underway on several case-study farms. These trials will help ensure the system works effectively across various farming environments,” concludes Kay.
