Farmers pray for extreme solution

Colin Simpson's farm at Maromaku is badly affected by the drought, and many of the valley's dams are waterless. Photo / Christine Cornege

The drought is so bad for dairy farmers in the Maromaku Valley that Colin Simpson is praying for an extreme solution.

This small valley near Kawakawa has no bore water available, dams have run dry, leaving cracked, hard earth, and the main creek is just a trickle. Constant westerlies are drying everything else.

It did not rain in the valley in November, and in the last three months of 2009, Northland saw less than a third of the expected rainfall.

When the Weekend Herald visited Mr Simpson, he was out trying to connect the few remaining ponds that had any water left in them to troughs across 420ha.

"We're chasing our tails. We need a cyclone or the autumn to come now."

Without water, Mr Simpson cannot graze his herd.

Conditions are so bad that he is fast moving through feed tagged for winter, has spent $20,000 sending 100 cows to Waikato for grazing and is nearly 40 per cent down on production on this time last year.

In his 18 years of farming in the Maromaku, there have been dry seasons before - but never so early, he said.

On coastal areas the situation isn't much better. At Helena Bay, Bill Bisset was getting his water tank filled.

He had trucked in 4500 litres since the drought began. The 78-year-old, who lives in a yellow home his father built in 1950, said it had not been so bad since 1946, when it failed to rain between September and April.

"We've seen no more than 15mm since September - I reckon it's trying to get close," Mr Bisset said.

Northland Regional Council's water resources manager, Dale Hansen, said a severe weather event could do more harm than good.

About 70 per cent of the region was at the mercy of the El Nino weather pattern, which had dumped rain on the western side of the peninsula but had starved central areas and the east coast from Whangarei Heads into the Far North. Northland needed 100mm spread over a week to get into recovery mode, Mr Hansen said.

"We need nice steady rain so the ground can suck up the moisture. Anything harsher would just wash away the soil."

As many Northland farmers look up at the skies, river systems across the region are also causing concern.

The Mangakahia, Wairua and Kaeo Rivers are moving at rates approaching or surpassing their lowest annual points, and the Kerikeri waterway is moving at a level which reflects a one-in-five-year drought.

Mr Hansen said that with two more months of dry weather in store, the importance of water conservation was something all Northlanders needed to be aware of.

In the Far North, water restrictions have been lifted in Paihia and Opua but the council is warning that two big events within a week of each other - the Ngapuhi Festival over Anniversary Weekend and Waitangi Day - could put pressure on the Kaikohe and Paihia water supplies.

Residents on tank water who are planning to buy in supplies are on notice that commercial suppliers - who already have restricted access to council-owned reservoirs - may be stopped from drawing to deal with the expected increase in demand.

Complete fire bans still cover much of the area. However, while Northland continues to swelter, the conditions haven't yet reached the point where a drought can be formally declared. The Ministry of Agriculture and Forestry will make that call.