Permaculture in New Zealand

Hi everyone,  I am looking at developing a system for dealing with effluent on dairy farms and am looking for input and ideas on the topic.  I am relatively new to the permaculture concept but I am very excited by it and have already started building a garden on the south karori property I am staying on at the moment. 

I am particularly interested in dealing with dairy farm effluent as my father (Allan Crafar) has been having a hard time with regional councils hassling him over effluent systems (I'm sure some of you are aware of this).  The media makes it sound like he is an evil "rich guy" that is deliberately doing it but in reality, he is merely using the same sort of systems as most other farms in the country and has similar problems to most other farmers, the difference being the size of his operation, the media coverage and, in my experience, harrassment from regional councils.  Opinions aside on this matter, the reality of the situation is that the way farms deal with effluent in this country is labor intensive, highly mechanized and prone to failure, resulting in damage to the envorinment.  I aim to find a way of dealing with this that benefits both farmer and environment.  I am aware that this idea falls outside the typical permaculture ideals but I thought this would be a good place to ask around for ideas as to how to solve this problem. The way I see it, the dairy industry still plays a major role in supporting this country econimically so we need to work on developing ways of incorperating bio diversity into it progressively rather than a "start again" approach.

These are the main focal points of my aim:

• Uses natural processes and plants to deal with high concentrations of Nitrogen rich cow effluent

• Sutainable long term

• Produces food or useful products

• Naturally self sufficient without the use of machinery or with minimal use of machinery.

• Reliable and fool proof

I am doing this research under my own steam, with no prompting from my parents but if I can come up with a plan that is viable I will present the idea to them and organise a trial area on one of their farms.  This could prove to be an exciting project considering the current pressure on the farming sector over environmental issues.  It could definitly generate some good publicity for permaculture in New Zealand.