Big dry drags on for southern farmers

Photo / NZME.

Ministry for Primary Industries monitoring situation as Marlborough and Canterbury await end to drought.

Parts of the South Island have experienced sporadic bursts of rain in recent weeks but Marlborough and Canterbury are still waiting for the big drought breaker.

A spokesman for the Ministry for Primary Industries (MPI) said dry conditions in the South Island were still classified as a "medium-scale adverse event" as many farmers continued to feel the effects of the drought going into winter.

The ministry, which in February declared drought conditions on the east coast of the South Island as being a "medium-scale adverse event", will review its recovery measures at the end of June.

MPI will continue to monitor the dry conditions and remain in close contact with rural communities to assess what support is needed, the spokesman said.

MetService meteorologist Georgina Griffiths said normal soil moisture levels had returned to the North Island but that Marlborough and Canterbury had remained in significant soil moisture deficit.

But Griffiths said the current cold snap could provide some moisture to the affected regions over the next two days.

Federated Farmers South Canterbury president Ivon Hurst, who runs a sheep and cattle farm at Pleasant Point, said sporadic bursts of rain in recent weeks had given rise to a "green drought".

"The brown has disappeared and the grass has turned green, but the ground is solid as a board underneath," he told the Herald.

About 15.5mm of rain had fallen since March 28 but a downpour of about 50mm was needed to break the drought, he said.

Hurst said access to sufficient feed to get farmers through the winter will be a crunch point for many, but he said farmer morale was reasonable under the circumstances.

The hardest hit among the livestock farmers were dairy farmers who were under the increased stress of having their irrigation switched off, while at the same time facing lower payouts from Fonterra and the other dairy companies and higher feed costs.

Federated Farmers' Marlborough president, Greg Harris, said parts of the province had experienced their driest nine months on record.

A large proportion of Marlborough farmland has been classed as dry land hill country - generally the kind of properties that rely on some autumn rain to carry them through the winter.

Marlborough has about 24,000ha in viticulture which, with town supply, had been under water restrictions. The grape harvest was almost finished, which would come as some relief to winegrowers, Harris said.

Rain was also needed to replenish the region's aquifers, which had been drawn on heavily during the dry spell.

"It's going to take a long time to recover and a lot of farmers are carrying very little stock compared with what they normally hold," Harris said. "The implications of this situation on some of these properties can run on for years."