Help available for flood-hit farmers
The chair of the Otago Rural Support Trust, Tom Pinckney, says he believes that they will be especially busy in the coming months as the enormity of the floods hit home.
Last week Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern admitted things could have been done better.
She and Agriculture Minister Damien O’Connor unveiled new initiatives designed to make it easier for farmers to claim compensation and to give them more support.
These include an online tool to calculate milk production losses, a simpler form to lodge a compensation claim and the funding of a DairyNZ/Beef + LambNZ compensation assistance team to help farmers with their claims.
Of NZ’s 24,000 farms, 74 have been infected with M. bovis and 36 destocked and cleared of the disease.
Ardern says the new initiatives will help farmers and their families hit by the disease to move on and get back in business.
Eradicating the disease is still a priority.
