Drought hits Marlborough farmers

Region experiences lowest rainfall in almost 100 years

Many farmers across the top of the South Island are still facing extremely dry conditions, with no significant rain on the horizon. Agriculture Minister Todd Mcclay met with farmers in South Marlborough on Monday, after officially declaring a drought in the region last week.

One of those was Sam Murray, who farms sheep and beef near the Flaxbourne River inland from Ward.

He said there had been a serious lack of rain — about 115mm — since the end of July.

“It is what it is, we’ve farmed accordingly and sent a fair bit of stock off, but it is starting to bite now that it is getting cooler and there is not a lot of time until spring.”

The lack of feed and water has forced him to destock his farm. Last autumn the farm had 6500 stock units — this autumn it’s down to 2500.

“About half of the breeding cows have gone and the sheep — over half of the ewes have gone, some of the older ones have been killed and the rest have been sent down to graze on the home farm at Clarence.”

Murray was one of 20-odd farmers who met with Minister Mcclay in one of the most affected areas, Taimate, in South Marlborough.

“The conditions are extremely dry, some are saying they have not seen this since 1941.

“We announced a drought event to provide additional support, which includes allowing them to put their tax off until next year,” Mcclay said.

“Many are destocking at the moment, they have been buying in feed though the prices are very, very high.

“The No 1 concern they have is making sure there is enough water from an animal welfare point of view.”

Mcclay said farmers were a resilient bunch, but they were facing conditions that were out of the ordinary. “They have dealt with this before, they said it often can be dry, but this is just quite exceptional.

“The biggest challenge for many of them is what happens going into the colder months of winter because they have been using the feed they have stored up.”

Marlborough Federated Farmers president Evan White said over the past nine months, the region had experienced its lowest rainfall in almost 100 years.

“It’s a perfect storm in that we have got low commodity prices, we’ve got high interest and we’ve got the drought — but it is not only that, it’s also the combination of that with these unworkable freshwater farm plans, it is all that extra bureaucracy and cost on top of it.”

White said it was important the minister heard farmers’ concerns first hand, with forecasters predicting the dry weather would linger into the autumn.

“The next stage will be a green drought, we’ve had a couple of showers and there is a green tinge, but it is getting too late . . . it is getting colder and it is really going to be spring before there is a chance of coming out of this drought.”

Some farmers were still rebuilding from the 2016 Kaiko¯ura earthquake, with the drought also highlighting some underground springs were no longer flowing as they had been.

White said water storage was an issue for many, with calls for the proposed Flaxbourne Community Irrigation Scheme, which had been under development since 2008, to go ahead.