Farmer’s stream-water drinking challenge labelled risky by Greenpeace.
A Wairoa farmer filmed himself drinking water from a stream on his farm in a bid to prove water quality issues aren’t confined to farming.
In the video, he describes the stream as "a bit off-colour" after recent rain, but says the water tastes "not too bad really.
* Opinion: Drinking from streams is like Russian roulette * Opinion: Taranaki farm water is clean enough to drink * 11 tips for keeping your farm drinking water clean * Declining water quality hurting tourism, industry says He ends the video with a challenge: "How about a couple of mates do the same thing, eh?"
Toop said farmers needed to take a scientific approach to addressing the water pollution issue, rather than pretending it did not exist.
But Jarden said he had been drinking stream water all his life "and I’ve never got crook from it".
Jarden said he wanted to make the point that there was a "bigger picture" around water pollution and "it’s not only farmers that are contributing to it".
"It is easy to overlook other factors – physical characteristics of a water body, how easily water is heated in summer, water fowl as a direct source of nutrients to waterways – and towns aren’t perfect either.
We all need to do our part.
"They go on about swimmable rivers and everything.