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Home / The Country

South Island drought: Minister to announce Government assistance package

Patrice Dougan
By Patrice Dougan
Assistant Chief of Staff·NZME.·
11 Feb, 2015 10:08 PM2 mins to read

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A medium-adverse drought event will be declared in the South Island today. Photo / File

A medium-adverse drought event will be declared in the South Island today. Photo / File

A medium-adverse drought event will be declared in the South Island today.

Primary Industries Minister Nathan Guy will today meet with South Canterbury farmers to make the declaration and announce a Government assistance package.

"It's pretty serious down here, they haven't had a lot of rain through the summer in fact for the last six months," Mr Guy told Newstalk ZB this morning.

"Niwa [National Institute of Water and Atmospheric Research] is telling us this is the driest January in 43 years in the South Island, so it is a concern."

Because of this, Mr Guy said: "I'm going to be declaring around lunchtime a medium adverse drought event for the east coast of the South Island."

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The Ministry of Primary Industries was also "monitoring very closely the Wairarapa", he said.

A medium-adverse event was a mid-range event, between a localised one and a national one, Mr Guy explained to broadcaster Mike Hosking this morning.

"That means we'll chip in a little bit of support through rural support trusts, those farming families in hardship will be available to get rural assistance payments which is the unemployment benefit," he said.

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"I don't anticipate that farmers will be too much interested in the handout, they want to know that the Government's concerned about their well-being, and I'm sure we are about that.

"This is going to have an effect on the New Zealand economy, [it's] a bit early to say how much, but the main thing is that we support them."

He hoped for a decent amount of rain through the autumn and winter months, "otherwise it's going to be hard to get their stock through the winter, and that of course leads onto other things, like getting female breeding stock back in lamb or in calf, which is a real concern".

However, Mr Guy said farmers were "resilient".

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"They've been through these sort of events before, whether it's snowstorms, cyclones, droughts, massive rain, flood events, commodity price fluctuations, they are a resilient lot," he said.

"This is about showing support from the Government to know that farming families are hurting. These are very important businesses for provincial New Zealand, that money that they generate through our exports flows through to all of our major cities.

"It's a big part of our New Zealand economy and it needs to be acknowledged that they're feeling the pinch at the moment."

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