The New Zealand farming landscape has changed significantly in the last eight years, with fewer sheep, more dairy cows, more trees, burgeoning vineyards and spreading avocado orchards and olive groves.
Grazing and arable land use decreased by 12 percent from 1994 to 12.0 million hectares, while horticultural land use increased by 6 percent from 1994 to reach 110,000 hectares as at 30 June 2002.
Solid fertiliser use increased by 20 percent to 4.1 million tonnes between 1994 and 2002. Two-thirds of the increase came from the South Island, with the Southland region increasing by 37 percent to 0.5 million tonnes.
The main activity with land under an irrigation system was dairy cattle farming, with 0.16 million hectares, followed by sheep farming, with 0.12 million hectares during the year ended 2002.
There were 46,886 hectares of land certified as either fully organic or in transition to becoming fully organic.
Here is something I thought interesting. Shows how the land is used for our everyday uses and where they are obtained for.
