“Everyone was ready to go, probably the week prior to the cyclone, but a lot of people chose to wait for a bit of rain to help size up crops, Franklin said.
“But in hindsight, it was probably the worst decision made by everyone including ourselves.”
Mackay asked if she’d lost all of her crop.
“We could only salvage 16 per cent of our overall crop, so the financial impact was devastating,” she said.
“How have you survived these last ten months? Have the banks, for instance, got in behind you?“ Mackay asked.
“We had them out on the farm in the initial week post-cyclone,” Franklin said.
“So that was pretty uplifting - just to have their support on-farm and [for them to] come and look firsthand at what had happened from the cyclone - that devastation that had impacted all of us in the kūmara industry.
“They have supported us financially and are supporting us to carry on in business, so that has been hugely valuable.
“It took away a lot of that stress and burden in those early days post the cyclone and lifted us to keep on going.”
“Krista, we know that in the early days of a traumatic event, adrenaline keeps you going but it is really when the dust settles, no bad pun intended, and you see all the damage and the destruction in front of you, that it becomes mentally challenging,” Mackay said.
“How were you once the realisation hit you what really lay in front of you?” he asked.
“I have to say my husband took the biggest brunt of the devastation, he was devastated, he is the green fingers out on the farm, pouring his heart and soul into growing the kūmara, whereas I am doing the office and admin work and being mum to our two daughters - Keleigh, 6 and Harper 3,” Franklin said.
“Farming is a team effort; he was the one out on the farm and I could see he wasn’t coping very well in those early days.
“Really honing into getting off-farm was crucial for us to keep going.
“We felt really reclusive in those early days, we didn’t want to confront people. So much so my husband would cross the street downtown to avoid meeting people.
Listen below:
“Getting off-farm was huge, he actually at one point went off on a fishing trip that had been scheduled for a long time and that was just after the cyclone.
“He was tossing and turning whether he should go or shouldn’t go, and he really lost his soul.
“So I asked him to go out onto that boat and go to sea and find his soul and come home again.”
“Now you guys are still facing an uncertain future, so you came up with a plan A, B and C,” Mackay said.
He asked Franklin to share those plans.
“I think the hardest part was the unknown of everything that had happened,” Franklin said.
“For us, the uncertainty and the spiralling and going around in circles, it felt like we needed to sit down, not only for our bank but for ourselves, so we knew what kind of direction we were heading in.
“We had to map out what was Plan A, what was Plan B and what was Plan C.
“Plan A was continuing with what we were doing and hoping it would work out.
“Plan B was a mixture of keeping the farm and taking on external roles.
“I took on facilitator work for the Rural Trust Support which has been hugely invaluable, my husband, being a builder by trade prior to growing kūmara, took on building and I also got back into massage therapy one night a week.
“We tried to get external revenue to create a revenue stream outside of kūmara in case they didn’t pan out so well.
“Plan C was to give everything up and do things totally different.
“When we landed on our plan - which was plan A - we wanted to continue with what we were doing - we thought if we gave everything up now, we would kick ourselves for not trying again so it is a make-or-break year, and we couldn’t be happier choosing that choice,” Franklin said.
“A wonderful story, Krista Franklin, thank you so much for your time, how is the 2024 kūmara crop looking?” Mackay asked.
“It is looking really good,” Franklin said.
“We don’t want to say too much too soon but we are feeling more positive than this time last year, the fact that we have finished planting on time and ahead of schedule and that is all down to a lot of hard work.”
