Auckland flooding has wiped out crops in Pukekohe, adding to a miserable summer for many growers and potentially impacting food prices. The rains have also damaged local roads. Fresh produce grower Kirit Makan tells the Herald about the situation.
A fortune in fresh produce has been wiped out in the Auckland floods with piles of onions washed onto the roads and more food price inflation expected.
Fields with pumpkins, garlic, onions and other crops in Pukekohe were still partly flooded on Monday afternoon, nearly three days after the peak of the storm.
The community in the south of Auckland has some of the country’s best horticultural land. But roads and fields were damaged and crops washed into ditches and even residential suburbs.
Some people on Monday were scavenging onions at the side of the road.
“This is probably the worst time for it to hit because a lot of the crops are lifted and sitting on top of the soil,” Pukekohe Vegetable Growers Association president Kirit Makan said today.
Makan said it was still too soon to say how many crops were ruined but the economic damage could be in the millions of dollars.
“We’ve got areas heavily affected and then areas just affected to a point,” Makan said.
New Zealand last year experienced the biggest annual food price increase since 1990, according to Stats NZ .
And Makan said the damage to crops since Friday would impact grocery prices but right now it was anybody’s guess how serious that would be.
Some Pukekohe growers said poorly maintained or silted-up culverts on public land may have exacerbated the flooding.
“It’s all about where the water’s gone, the sheer volume,” Makan said. “If the drains can’t cope the water takes another route.”
Makan said growers hoped to work with Auckland Council and Waikato District Council to encourage enhanced maintenance of culverts and roadside stormwater infrastructure.
He said in some places locals “haven’t seen the drains cleared in years”.
Makan said better maintenance of stormwater infrastructure would not have prevented all crop losses in the freak storm, but probably would’ve at least helped avert some more disasters.
Fresh produce ready for market was washed out of fields, even inundating a residential neighbourhood in Pukekohe. Photo / John Weekes
More rain was expected this evening, although Coromandel, Northland and Auckland neighbourhoods north of Orewa are expected to bear the brunt.
“A little bit of a saving grace now is it’s cut its path and any more rain should technically follow the path,” Makan said.
Apart from onion and garlic crops wrecked, some potato crops were potentially at risk too.
“The other issue is we’ve had so much water it’s sitting in low-lying areas,” Makan said. “If it stays too wet for too long they will rot in the ground.”
The floods had also washed away some high-quality soil.
Makan said he’d been growing for about 25 years and the big Friday flood was one of the worst he ever witnessed.
It came at a very bad time, because growers had already been suffering from pandemic-related supply chain issues and labour shortages.
“The labour issue in particular is ongoing but we just have to find workarounds.”
A friend of Makan’s who also grows fresh produce and owns land on both sides of the council boundary said he was concerned about the damage storms had done to roads.
He said growers weren’t asking for special treatment but wanted to have a collaborative approach with authorities to improve culverts and drains for the whole community’s benefit.
“It’s been an ongoing issue for many years.”
Physical Geography Professor James Renwick said the country generally needed bigger drains, larger stormwater pipes and stormwater systems capable of dealing with extreme weather events.
Generally, local government authorities maintain watercourses on public property, including culverts. Property owners in Auckland are responsible for maintaining watercourses running through their property.
Waka Kotahi NZTA this afternoon said the state highway network across the upper North Island was “majorly affected” by flooding, slips, and other damage, with potentially long-term effects. It said staff were out again today assessing damage.
This afternoon, Auckland Mayor Wayne Brown said the coming days could be worse than what Aucklanders had already endured, because the ground was so saturated.
He added: “Stay home, stay safe, and stay away from areas which might slip. And stay away from floodwaters. Follow instructions of emergency authorities.”
Councillor Richard Hills said the council had already started picking up storm-related rubbish. He urged people to log jobs such as broken pipes so the council could help.
