Taranaki drought leaves farmers limping toward season's end

The farm is just a few kilometres from the coast and sea is clearly visible from the cow shed. He milks around 530 cows on his farm just north of the township of Manaia - a farm his family has owned for 120 years, so he knows the area well and has experienced droughts before.

"But this is 100% the worst I have experienced in close to 50 years by a long way, because it hit harder and earlier than normal," he told Dairy News.

Walker says dry spells in coastal Taranaki are common and generally these last for around six weeks around January, February and March. But he could see there was a problem very early on, noting that last year the weather in winter and spring were good for calving, but not good for building up soil moisture and recharging aquifers.

"We had some small amounts of rain last December, but after that we had no rain until the end of March. And since then we've had just a few drops of around 15 to 20 mls which has helped to get the grass to grow, but below the surface it's very dry," he says.

The drought does not affect all the Taranaki province and in many places further inland there is no problem. It is confined to coastal areas from as far as south as Whanganui right through to Waitara, but the worst hit areas are around Manaia, Opunake and other smaller nearby settlements.

Walker says, based on what he could see back in December, he was sure the situation was likely to deteriorate, so he decided to take a speedy, proactive approach to get ahead of the disaster. He says this was key to managing his way through the present crisis.

"We had a big meeting of about 50 farmers at my place in January, organised by our local vet Hoppy (Stephen Hopkinson), and he laid out the situation. He told us that we needed to take immediate action because the signs were that the situation would only get worse and this was not the time to sit on our hands and hope.

"Based on that, I immediately started buying in feed and in the end bought nine truck and trailer loads of grass silage plus an additional 70 tonnes of maize silage," he says.

Walker says the sight of truckloads of silage heading up the road has been the norm for many weeks but is now tapering off.

Buying in the supplements wasn't the only action Walker took. He immediately got rid of his cull cows, dried off his heifers and sent them and his calves to a grazier to take the pressure off his farm. He's also keeping his heifers grazing off the farm for a month longer. To top it off, on January 7 he put the remaining cows on once-a-day milking.

"Something I don't normally do," he says.

Walker says he normally milks 530 cows, but at present this is down to 295.

His situation was also complicated by the fact that he'd just bought a neighbour's farm and was having to integrate that into his existing property. He says his target for the season was 280,000 kgMS/ms, but because of the drought he will be 40,000 kgMS short and income will inevitably be down.

On the positive side, the decision to buy in large quantities of supplements has ensured that Walker’s cows are in very good condition with BCS up there with the best. Unlike some other farmers, he hasn’t suffered from a shortage of stock water because he’s on the Waimate West Water scheme.

“It’s about protecting next season, and I have been told that many farmers would be envious of the condition my cows are in,” he says.

Grass Grub

Back in last September and October, Richard Walker became aware of a pending grass grub problem.

He says the beetles that produce the grubs were flying around like crazy. He says if you left a window in the house open, the beetles would fly in. The trouble he sensed then turned to reality this year, compounding the drought problem.

“The earth was effectively scorched by the drought and grass grub,” he says.

With the rain that has fallen in recent weeks, Walker has been able to direct drill new coated grass seed and there is tinge of green emerging on his pastures, but still the grass must grow into useful pasture.

Rain is key to this as are soil and air temperatures. In the case of temperatures, it’s ‘so far, so good’ and even the few cold mornings have not changed the situation. Ironically what is needed is what dairy farmers don’t normally want – a wet winter.

“We probably need 300 to 400 mils over the next few months to get the water table back up but then you have got the problem that you also don’t want a wet winter.

“But if we don’t get rain we are going to be in the same situation as were last year. This drought is a massive wakeup call for people around the coast and if we don’t get the rain we need, then you will see farmers growing crops such as turnips and maize to deal with the dry,” he says.

Walker says he’s spent close to $200,000 buying in supplement, not to mention the cost of restoring damaged pastures. His income is down because his milksolids are down, but the saving grace has been the $10 dairy payout. Without that, dairy farmers like Walker would be in very serious trouble.

Walker has heeded the advice of experts and called on his lifetime of experience to manage what many would describe as the unmanageable. The outcome with all that effort is quite sobering.

“By the looks of it, it will be just over a ‘break even’ season,” he says.