Keri Johnston is a trained Natural Resources Engineer, whose professional passions lie with land and water. She is currently the Chair of Irrigation New Zealand, and is a Director of Irricon Resource Solutions. What get’s her out of the bed in the morning is knowing that land and water are vital for our communities to thrive in perpetuity, and that we need to look after them and work with them, as opposed to managing them.
Keri’s take on sustainability and her journey to Irrigation New Zealand
Sustainability for Keri means “that our people and our planet are prosperous and resilient, with a sense of this enduring far, far into the future”. Taking a long term future view of sustainability is something that we are generally more short-sighted with in our culture, and there is a need for us to extend our lense out much further than just a few years ahead, says Keri. We need to be “lifting our head and shirting our gaze much further out”.
Keri saw Irrigation New Zealand as a way that she could give back to the sector that had been very good to her, but to also influence national policy in a direction that aligned with her views on sustainability. Irrigation New Zealand’s vision is water for food, fibre and community wellbeing for this generation and the next, which is something that speaks to Keri. She has been on the Board since 2016 and Chair since 2019. Her time with Irrigation New Zealand has been Keri’s first step into the world of governance which she has loved from the outset, but she admits that she didn’t necessarily feel good enough when taking on the Chair role.
“Even when I took on the Chairs role, I sort of still had that imposter syndrome that we often speak about, but I’m really proud to say now that the organisation is in good heart. It’s being effective and its strategic priorities of lead influence and empower. It’s in a good space. I’m really happy.”
Reflecting on her time and seeing progression from feeling unsure that she was good enough, to now being happy and proud of where the organisation is at, is an important part of Keri’s story, and of so many other people within any industry. Identifying that often we feel like we aren’t quite good enough, and normalising this, is such an important thing to be doing, and it not only humanises those around us, but also hopefully will help to reduce barriers to others taking on similar roles in any context. What helped Keri was that she is really focused on the strategy and what she is there to achieve, and that everyone has bought into that.
“And that’s not just at board level, but at our membership level as well. We all have our sort of eye on that prize at the end and I think too there has been a shift in mindset, particularly in recent years about sort of more of a work–with rather than work–against approach, particularly in the policy environment in Wellington, that in itself I think is really, really good. But it also means that we are doing things differently; that is something that aligns with me much better than the sort of bang your fist, you know, chest beating approach of perhaps advocacy in the past.”
There’s no denying that the water and policy space has been moving at a rapid rate and that the noise around it can be quite negative at times. For Keri, in order to keep the conversation positive, it is about just sticking on our road.
“You know there, you’re right, there is a lot of negative and quite loud voices out there, especially at the moment. But you kind of just have to keep them in your periphery, but just keep going forward on your own track and your own journey and your messaging and just keep that positivity out there as much as you can. And also, not necessarily refute, I don’t think you get anything from hitting the ball back over the net to that negative speak all of the time, but every now and again you do need to correct some of the misinformation that is out there, because that is probably quite harmful. So that is what we spend a bit of our time doing… we’ve got to actually as a sector fill those voids that are out there so that negative voice doesn’t have the opportunity to do it. You know it has to be that positive, robust information that is out there more so than anything else.”
SDG #6: Clean water and sanitation
Underneath SDG 6, a subset of the targets are focused on increasing water use efficiency across all sectors, ensuring sustainable withdrawals, implementing integrated water resource management at all levels, and protecting and restoring water related ecosystems. The work of Irrigation New Zealand is largely focused around these areas, particularly through training the sector around efficient water management so it is used at the right time, at the right place, and at the right amount. Keri states that in the past there has been an element of siloed views that have potentially formed the basis of water quantity and quality frameworks, however, now their focus is on influencing and designing these frameworks that take into the account the need of everybody and everything.
“So, this is that sort of holistic view rather than the siloed view that has potentially formed the basis of some of the management frameworks we’ve seen in the past, and it’s also really, really important at the moment, in light of climate change adaptation and resilience, you know, water is going to be critical for everybody going forward in terms of whether it’s community water supply, environmental flows and irrigation abstraction. As our climate does change and areas get drier having access to water to be able to grow food in particular is going to be really, really important and that is a big part of what we do.”
Keri also acknowledges the local community aspect as being really, really important too, with the rise of catchment groups around the country, providing connectivity between grass roots and the policy makers, and the policy settings.
“…you need that buy in right from the very first level at that grassroots, if any of this stuff is going to be effective, but also enduring: if you don’t have those on the ground on board, it is just doomed for failure… And also, I think an important point is that we know our catchments better than any person sitting at a desk in Wellington. We’ve got the knowledge; we have generational knowledge often too, you know, particularly in sort of farming catchments and so it’s bringing all of that knowledge together, and as you said, you know, thinking of the tools in the toolbox, working together collectively and that also includes with iwi Māori as well, to actually come up with the visions and the solutions for our own catchments and every catchment in New Zealand is different. It has its own challenges and its own opportunities. Having a one-size-fits-all approach to this isn’t going to work either. The grassroots aspect of it is so critically important.”
Keri’s take on the biggest challenge to the agricultural sector regarding sustainability
Keri’s response to this question speaks for itself.
“I think one of the biggest challenges that we’ve got, especially at the moment, is the view that sustainability means a loss of some sort. So, whether that’s profit by reducing income or increasing costs or even a loss of autonomy, you know, so some bureaucrats are sort of telling me how to farm, you know, that sort of thing. And also too, as we touched on before, there’s lots of negative closed mindsets out there at the moment and those loud voices. That is, to me anyway, sort of raising anxiety levels out there that don’t need to be there. Change is scary for many, but we don’t farm now the same way we did even ten years ago, so you know change is a constant and we need to embrace change and look, I do accept that the degree and pace of change that we are seeing at the moment is perhaps more than we have seen, particularly in recent times.
BUT we have an opportunity to cement ourselves as leaders with courage and integrity. So, we’re doing what is right over what is easy and we’re doing it in such a way that we are still profitable, our communities and our environment are healthy and well and will continue to be so for a very, very long time. And look, we will need to be innovative and that also means being brave and having adult conversations on things like gene editing, for example. But I believe we can do it.”
Keri makes an important point that change and/or sustainability doesn’t have to mean a loss – there is so much potential to come from the challenges we are facing, and opportunities to grow and look at things in new ways, as well as gain some pretty awesome things at the personal, business, sector and global level. With that, Keri leaves the following take home message:
“My take home message for everybody is this stuff is not hard or scary.
Get good advice from someone who knows farming as well as the environmental and sustainability piece.
And to get going on it now.
Change isn’t going to, nor does it have to happen overnight.
But if you have a vision and a plan on how you are going to get there, all will be well.”
Listen to Keri’s podcast episode here: