‘What’s farming going to look like at 50?’: Young Waikato farmer faces uncertainty

Monday, 22 June 2026

Matahuru beef farmer Jayden Corbett reckons farmers are feeling a lot of uncertainty amidst policy changes like Plan Change 1 and the Whangamarino Action Plan.

Jayden Corbett is one of many farmers around Whangamarino and the wider Waikato spooked over how pending environmental policies might affect his farming future.

“Our catchment is a thriving community, and each catchment would be the same. We’re not just a silt source on a map, we are the community.

“I just love farming. It’s me through and through, whether that’s the fact of growing up on it or loving the work and being outdoors. Watching the animals grow and working on the land, it’s great fun and no two days are the same.”

The Waikato Regional Council has led the development of the Whangamarino Action Plan to restore the area’s wetlands. Pictured after a ‘blackwater event’ in 2022-23.

Corbett, 22, has spent his entire life on the farm and one day would like to own his property in the Matahuru Valley, but environmental policies, like Plan Change 1 (PC1), have left him wondering what farming will look like in the future.

He grew up on his grandparents dairy farm in Waerenga, near Te Kauwhata, and worked on farms throughout school. He now leases and runs cattle on his grandparent’s property and manages a 1000ha beef farm in the Matahuru valley. He also acts as Federated Farmers meat and wool chair for North Waikato and vice chair for Waikato.

Both properties fall into the Whangamarino and Lake Waikare catchment zone. The ecological quality of the Whangamarino wetland and the lake have declined after decades of pressure and two back-to-back disasters.

Jayden Corbett says farmers are already doing good works on-farm with fencing and planting. File photo of the Whangamarino Wetland.

In response, the Waikato Regional Council has led the development of the Whangamarino Action Plan started in 2024, to reduce contaminant loss and improve water quality through other aspects like control of invasive species.

They recently held an information evening for the community and opened the plan up for feedback.

While Corbett said farmers were eager to do their bit, the combination of the action plan and the progression of PC1 had left some feeling uncertain about how the costs and works involved would affect them.

“It definitely makes you think ‘what’s farming going to be like when I get to 50’. The uncertainty around all of these sorts of incoming regulations and conversations about the environment continues to happen.

“Most of the time they are good conversations that we need to have because we are the incoming generation and we want to look after the environment better than it has been before us, so they are good conversations.

“But we do need some surety around regulations and good conversations about them as they’re rolled out.”

The action plan is non-statutory and WRC has not made any commitments in the plan so far. However, Corbett was concerned it could guide legislation in the future and thought it had needed better farmer consultation.

Under the proposed PC1, more than 400 farmers in the Whangamarino Wetland Catchment will have to obtain a restricted discretionary resource consent to continue their existing farming activities.

Jayden Corbett reckons that people need to remember that farmers are a community.

Their application will need to be supported by a tailored farm environment plan for their area’s issues. In a statement, Waikato Regional Council’s science, policy and information director, Tracey May, confirmed these farmers were set to be the first group to adopt PC1 in its proposed five-year roll-out due to the degraded state of these water-bodies.

May added that the council was working with industry groups to support landowners through the process and achieving water quality outcomes “required the collective effort of all in the catchment”.

The recent PC1 ruling has been called a milestone for river restoration by the Waikato River Authority and Waikato-Tainui saying it keeps the river’s health and wellbeing paramount.

Corbett said that in the last ten years across both properties a lot of work had already been done and he had seen other farmers doing the same.

Federated Farmers Waikato president, Chris Woolerton, says farmers need to be consulted on these policies.

“We’ve done a lot of collaboration with the Waikato Regional Council to fence off all of the streams that we can and retired lots of bush and planted the gaps.

“These are huge things for us to be doing and what we were told would be game changing for the environment and we agree. We’re looking into Halter as well, so we can manage the steepness and the contour of the land.”

He said a lot of sheep and beef farmers had yet to fully develop farm plans or dive further into works as they wanted more certainty on how the policies would land.

Collaboration with the regional council and their grant incentives over the years had helped many farmers with the practical costs of works like fencing streams.

Federated Farmers Waikato region president, Chris Woolerton, said Whangamarino farmers were “feeling extremely concerned because some of these proposals are quite restrictive for them” and they needed to be involved in the decision process.

“We need to be fully aware that farmers are about the environment because we want to be farming tomorrow, so it’s not just about what we’re not doing, it’s also about recognising what we’re doing to protect the environment now.”