Top Māori farm faces costly rebuild after severe storm damage
One of the country's top Māori farms faces a long and costly rebuild to get the property back to where it was before recent storms ripped through it.
The 360ha bull-beef farm owned by the Whangaroa Ngaiotonga Trust is located near the settlement of Whangaruru and last year won the prestigious Ahuwhenua Trophy for the top Māori farm in the country. It is one of a small number of farms in the Whangaruru area which bore the brunt of the storm.
What was once a beautiful coastal farm is now facing months of work to get fully back up and running. Co-trustee of the Whangaroa Ngaiotonga Trust, Morris Pita, says they had 400 millimetres of rain in a very short period which caused a lot of damage to the farm and other properties and roading infrastructure in the area.
He says the farm took a big hit with half a dozen culverts destroyed.
"What we have now with these crossings is ditches that are two metres deep and four metres wide which are impassable to stock," he told Rural News.
"The stock are being moved to other parts of the farm. However, the water is so deep in certain places around the farm that the only way that staff can get around is by using kayaks," he says.
Pita says fortunately there have been no stock losses and no damage to any houses on the property. He says their first priority has been their people, their community and the stock. He says in addition to the damaged culverts, they estimate that they have lost about two kilometres of fences.
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Pita says they also lost some pumps that were washed away by the storm.
"As well, some debris from hillsides not on our farm have been washed down on to some of our low-lying paddocks making these inaccessible. However, we will see what the next storm brings and when things dry out we will need to get a digger in to deal with this problem," he says.
Rural News spoke to Pita just before the tropical storm arrived and he says they were hunkering down and taking the necessary precautions to deal with this and any other events.
Meanwhile, Federated Farmers Northland provincial president Colin Hannah says the storm that hit the town near Whangaruru had little effect on the rest of the region. But when Rural News spoke to him before the storm arrived, he indicated that farmers and emergency organisations were preparing for what might come their way. He says Northlanders are used to such events.
