Hard road to recovery

"My team on the ground in Rai Valley are quite shocked at what they're seeing on some of the farms in terms of the damage," he says.

"When you get shingle go through paddocks, it's hard to feed your cows off that, so there will be challenges there."

Speaking to Dairy News a week and a half on from the emergency, Fergusson said Fonterra was still not collecting milk from five farms cut off by road slips.

But given the scale of the emergency, he said he was "really pleased with progress".

While Rai Valley, between Nelson and Blenheim, was by far the hardest hit by direct flooding, milk collection was also badly disrupted in the Collingwood area of Golden Bay because of slips on the only road in and out.

"At one stage, we weren't able to collect from 70 farms, 40 in the Collingwood area and 30 in Rai Valley. As of right now, we're collecting from about 65."

Fergusson could not give an exact figure on the amount of milk dumped but said it was relatively low volumes because it was fortunately early in the season, in a region that tends to calve and start milking later than others.

"And one thing we ensure is that all of our farmers have got really good on-farm storage facilities in case they have to dispose of milk so it's done in the safest manner possible."

Dairy farmer Geoff Spark, from Eyrewell in North Canterbury, led a group of seven volunteer farmers and eight "Handy Landy" students from Lincoln University for a weekend cleanup in the Rai Valley and Canvastown district.

Spark said they could see where water had topped deer fencing that was already quite high above the river level, and extended across the estimated 700m width of the valley.;

"It was quite incredible to see how high the water level had been across such a large valley.

"It is a miracle that more stock losses did not occur, considering the volume of water coming down the valley. Farmers acted fast to shift their animals to higher ground," he said.

"It's not uncommon for them to have the odd flood but we talked to one farmer who's lived there all his life and he said he'd never seen a flood quite like this. It was like three floods in one."

Over two full days the team covered seven dairy farms and one sheep and beef farm, clearing and reinstating fences, a stock underpass and culverts.

The aftermath of recent flooding in the Rai Valley. Photo Credit: Justin Morrison.

On one farm they reinstated over 2km of the boundary fence with SH6, which had been largely wiped out from the flooding.

"One fence line, you could only see the top 300mm of the posts, there was that much sand over it.

"We fixed one farmer's backing gate because one of our guys was a really good welder so that saved him from getting out a guy from town."

Spark said it was great to see the clear community spirity shining through as locals organised food deliveries through the district.

"Fonterra and the Farm Source team also deserve a shout out as they have been clearly working really hard to support their farmers affected by the flooding right in the middle of calving. The timing could not have been much worse.

"Many farms will need some large machines to clear debris as well as considerable reseeding over areas left with silt deposits.

"One farm we assisted lost 10ha of grazing paddocks to the river. That is a big loss."

Spark said their group was really pleased to be able to assist fellow farmers.

"There's still plenty to do up there but we gave it a bit of a nudge."

Spark thanked BNZ, Rabobank, Artisan Bakery Rangiora, Sheffield Pie Shop, and those that donated home cooked meals and baking to give to the locals. "It was a team effort."

Ferguson said another 10 people from the Canterbury Farm Source team travelled up last Monday morning to continue the cleanup under the guidance of the Fonterra emergency response team.

Meanwhile, Golden Bay Federated Farmers President Cherie Chubb said it had been "a tough week to get through". But she had high praise for the fourth-generation family-run local stock transport company Solly's for "thinking outside the box" in getting bobby calves out past a bad slip on Birds Hill, north of Takaka.

The road was closed for a while then reopened only for light vehicles, so milk tankers and stock trucks could not get through to service the 40 dairy farms on the far side.

However, Solly's was able to organise a local truck to bring bobbies to the slip then used a light ute to ferry them through to Solly's trucks on the Nelson side.

The company owners Merv Solly and his son Ed declined to be interviewed for Dairy News but through a company spokeswoman said they were "just doing what we usually do to serve out community," and it was "just another day's work".

Chubb said the district was recovering but roading damage remained "an ongoing inconvenience" for some.