Cyclone Gabrielle: Farmers at Hikurangi Swamp feel wrath of the storm

Hikurangi Swamp farmer Geoff Crawford, pictured amid earlier 2020 floods in the 5200-hectare farming area north of Whangārei. Photo / Michael Cunningham

Cyclone Gabrielle is wreaking havoc in Hikurangi Swamp as farmers scramble to milk 15,000 cows and high winds wipe out $2 million worth of wintering barns and a covered feed pad.

Hikurangi Swamp Fonterra farm manager Mason Smith said the two wintering barns, which could house 1000 cows and an adjacent covered feed pad for up to 500 cows, were wrecked in the cyclone’s high winds yesterday.

The Jordan Valley farm he manages was totally flooded by this morning.

“I’ve been farming for 25 years and [have] seen floods, but nothing like this,” Smith said.

“It’s the ferocity of the wind ripping up the sheds,” he said.

Smith said power was now out to his cowshed, so he was trying to find a generator or alternate option for milking the cows.

Each of the steel poles in the covered feed pad weighed 500 kilograms and had been blown out of the ground.

At edition time, water was rising across the $50m Hikurangi Swamp scheme-managed 5000 hectares and ever-closer to access roads.

Hikurangi Swamp comprises roughly 100 dairy farms with 15,000 dairy cows, plus beef farming. The farms are expected to produce more than $45m of milk and beef this year.

Water was reaching the top of stopbanks across the swamp, with spillways into paddocks likely soon to be in action. These worked to reduce the risk of floodwaters covering access roads, Hikurangi township and State Highway 1.

Hikurangi Swamp farmer and Northland Regional Council councillor Geoff Crawford was this morning milking his cows with a generator. He was supposed to be shifting his young stock to land outside the swamp.

“We’ll probably lose 200 hectares to flooding before long,” Crawford said earlier today.

Crawford also had to struggle to recover 50 tonnes of newly made silage which had lost its cover in the wind overnight. Getting the cover back on and the tyres back in place had meant “holding on for dear life” to get the job done.

A 70-year-old oak tree and shed had been blown over in high winds.

Crawford said cows could go for up to about two days at the most without being milked before problems such as mastitis began to develop, which in turn potentially affected milk quality.

He said the swamp drained a huge area of land including Puhipuhi, Whananaki, Tōwai, Hikurangi, Glenbervie Forest and towards Helena Bay.

Hikurangi Swamp is a major part of the Kaipara Harbour catchment. The harbour drains two-thirds of Northland out into the Northern Wairoa river and past Dargaville. The 947-hectare harbour is one of the biggest in the world.

The swamp contributes 15 per cent of the flow of the Northern Wairoa River.

Local Democracy Reporting is Public Interest Journalism funded through NZ On Air.