My Account
A year on from the catastrophic Auckland Anniversary weekend floods and Cyclone Gabrielle, those who bore the full force of nature over that three-week period are still coping with the after effects and can remember it as though it was yesterday.
I caught up with several farmers in the Kaipara Hills and Puhoi area recently to find out how well the recovery process has gone and how much still remains to be done.
It is something of a platitude to assume farmers are stoic and resilient and therefore able to handle the enormous levels of stress such events cause, both mental and financial, or the sheer amount of energy and resources necessary to carry out the work to repair the damage.
A common theme is gratitude for the amount of community support and assistance they have received, notably from the Rural Support Trust (RST), Taskforce Green and sponsors such as Beef + Lamb NZ and FMG for community events held at the Kaipara Flats Sports Club, as well as more local groups, such as the Araparera Community Catchment Group.
Kaipara farmer Andrew Maclean, whose property was in the direct firing line, is heavily involved in coordinating the work of the Rural Support Trust and Taskforce Green, keeping in touch with farms in the area about the damage they incurred and arranging for a crew to visit them.
The RST liaises with the Ministries of Primary Industry Industries and Social Development, as well as regional councils, and identifies the worst affected farms to coordinate the recovery programme. There is a six-man crew from Dargaville, which spends every third week in the Kaipara, clearing trees from streams, fence lines, drains and culverts. Unfortunately, funding is too short to engage a crew to work full time in this area.
Maclean says the restoration work will take years to fix because steep hill country access is very challenging and costly, while inflation has dramatically increased costs. On his own property, as on all the others, there were many slips, and fences and tracks taken out, but he has converted from livestock to native trees and bush, which means the absence of fencing is not such a problem.
Scott Innes, his parents and brother Brett own three farms near Tauhoa, and all were badly damaged – one slip on his parents’ farm measured 300 x 60 metres, while he calculates his farm alone suffered from nearly 2000 slips. The third major downpour washed out a culvert he had already spent $1000 on repairing and his advice is to wait and see what happens instead of rushing to repair things immediately.
With Forest Bridge Trust funding, he fenced off an area of native bush two years ago, but the original 100 metres of fencing was flattened in the storm and would now need 400 metres to replace because of the damage to the land.
Scott reckons he has already spent $40,000 on diggers to repair damaged or destroyed tracks, but only a fraction of the work needed has yet been done. He has decided to simplify his farming operation by increasing the size of the paddocks, which reduces the amount of fencing required. He plans to run fewer mobs of livestock, cut out one and two-year old heifers and breeding ewes, but buy store stock instead, and transition over several years from Romneys to Wiltshire sheep, which don’t need shearing.
High interest rates and the lamb price crashing have compounded the problems of the past year and Innes is still worried about how the land will behave if we get another wet winter. He reckons most farmers are still traumatised and only just coping, but is incredibly grateful for the help received from the RST and Taskforce Green, who sawed up a whole row of poplars, planted to protect fencing and prevent erosion of the riverbank, which had been uprooted and had fallen into the Hoteo River.
Steven Dill, whose farm borders the Innes property, says he has been humbled by the support he has received from community organisations. He, too, is looking to change his farming system and plans to retire 52 hectares of marginal hill country from pasture, where he will plant manuka, kanuka and cabbage trees, which he will put into the Emissions Trading Scheme. He says, regretfully, sheep and beef farming on marginal land is higher risk and less profitable than planting trees for the emissions rebate.
However he is still confident most of the hill country is suitable for sheep and beef, especially sheep, but he has come to the conclusion last year’s weather events mean the farm, which has been in the family since 1889, has now effectively become a one rather than two labour unit farm and he will reduce stock numbers accordingly.
Farmers in the area still need plenty of support to repair the damage on their farms, but an improvement in the lamb price would go a long way to lifting their spirits.
