It's official it's a drought

Drought was declared in Northland yesterday for the third time in four summers, with other regions likely to follow soon.

Minister for Primary Industries Nathan Guy made the Northland drought official after visiting Kylie and Malcolm Welsh's dairy farm near Dargaville.

"This is recognition that we are now beyond what is a normal dry summer, and into an extreme climatic event. The entire North Island is extremely dry, but Northland is one of the worst-hit areas," Mr Guy said.

The declaration of a medium-scale drought north of Auckland means extra Government funding will be provided to co-ordinate support through organisations like Rural Support Trusts.

In extreme cases there will also be payments available to farmers in severe hardship.

Despite dry weather since Christmas putting pressure on all Northland farms, some Far North farmers say the situation is not yet as serious as in 2010 when the district endured the worst drought in 60 years.

They said the difference this time around was that good spring conditions provided sufficient feed for Far North farmers to handle the past two dry months.

They were now buying in feed to keep dairy cows productive but not needing to do it to keep stock alive as they did three years ago.

Northland Regional Council hydrologist Alan Bee said Kaitaia had 5mm of rain in January, only 6 per cent of the town's 85mm average for the month. This month had been little better with 11mm, against a February average of 89mm.

Kerikeri had 6mm in January - 5 per cent of the 119mm monthly average. The town got a good thump of rain at the beginning of this month, but the 40mm tally for February was still far short of the 102mm average.

Kaikohe had 7.5mm of rain in January, when the monthly average was 102mm. About a third of the town's February average of 112mm had fallen this month.

Okaihau dairy farmer Terence Brocx was at Rakaia in the South Island when the Northland Age spoke to him yesterday. When he flew south he had seen the whole of the North Island was dry and in Canterbury irrigation water had been turned off for a fortnight because of low river flows.

"The Far North may be better off than the rest of the country. What the Bay of Islands is experiencing now is nothing compared with 2010," he said.

Mr Brocx has about 650 cows on two properties. He's milking some once a day and, as a winter milk supplier, he is grazing his autumn-calving animals off his farm.

He was now feeding out palm kernel and his February milk production was 27 per cent down on last year.

"We were fortunate in 2010 that it was a Northland drought and we were able to import feed from the south," he said.

Hokianga dairy and beef farmer Les King said every farmer was scrambling to get water to their stock as streams and dams dried up.

While there was still feed visible, some of it even with a tinge of green, grasses were dehydrated and had little nutritional value for stock.

Mr King said stock sales had dried up, forcing him to hang on to 700 weaner bulls and a couple of hundred 400kg cattle he didn't want to let go because he was being offered $120 a head less than what he believed they were worth.