Manawatu - the nation's food, fibre capital
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The regional leader for the area, James Muwunganirwa, told Dairy News there are regional pockets still with problems, but by and large the water is seeping away. The main damage appears to have been to fences and races.
“The water that was sitting on the pasture was clean so there wasn’t a lot of silt. The water hasn’t been on the pasture for a long time so there won’t be a great need for pasture renovation in those areas. The main challenge will be grazing those pastures that are wet.”
Muwunganirwa says farmers will have be careful when grazing wet pastures to limit pugging damage.
Meanwhile Federated Farmers Dairy chairman Andrew Hoggard who lives in the region says some farms in Manawatu and Rangitikei have been badly damaged. Some have lost most of their supplementary feed. The challenge for some will be with calving not far away.
“All the Federated Farmers provincial presidents have been meeting and organising help for farmers. Fonterra’s rapid response team has worked very well assisting their shareholders and DairyNZ has been out there giving feed budgeting advice.”
Hoggard says it hasn’t been easy with communications down and just getting information in to work out who needs help and how urgently. His experience suggests farmers are often on their own for the first days until help arrives, unless it is critical, like cows needing to be moved from floodwaters.
Hoggard says the mission can be trying to prioritise who needs help first.
