Farm work builds up post-quake
Kaikoura’s 24 dairy farmers have ended a tumultuous three weeks with the news their milk will finally be collected by Fonterra now that tankers can make it through.
For 400 sheep and beef farmers, the biggest issues following the 7.8 magnitude earthquake are water, fencing and access to their farms.
Federated Farmers North Canterbury president Lynda Murchison said the quake had highlighted the different responses authorities needed to take to natural disasters, depending on who was affected.
‘‘Mother Nature doesn’t stop so in farming communities grass still needs to be made into baleage, winter crops have to be planted.
‘‘In North Canterbury lambs need to be sent to the works by early December because they can’t be kept here over summer,’’ Murchison said.
Symptomatic of the problems facing farmers was the issue of where to send stock for processing. Silver Fern Farms suppliers north of the Clarence River had to send their stock on a circuitous route north to Blenheim and then south to Ashburton, whereas there was an Alliance plant in Nelson where they could be processed.
Murchison said ‘‘someone’’ needed to get the rival companies together to co-operate.
Feds North Canterbury meat and fibre spokesman Dan Hodgen agreed that the companies should have looked at the possibility of working together.
He said he had been impressed with the way farmers had responded to the situation, especially after two trying years of drought.
‘‘Some guys with damage have done an amazing job. I heard of one story of a farmer putting in 3 kilometres of new pipe.’’
Stock were able to use waterways to get water, but it was not a long term solution, especially when they had to be brought together for weaning.
In fact most farmers were starting to be able to find water from whatever sources they had used before.
Hodgen said many fences needed to be repaired, although he had not heard of many instances of stock roaming.
‘‘A lot of fences aren’t as straight as they were. One farmer told me ‘I’m not a great fencer but I’m not as bad as the quake has made me out to be’.’’
The response to the quake had shown how tough people were.