Editorial: Testing times
OPINION: Our hearts go out to the farmers and rural communities in Southland and Otago who are battling an onslaught of adverse weather.
Paul Paynter of the Yummy Fruit company told Rural News there is no recovery because there is no money for it.
He says while the Government has put up money for the clean-up, there is now a hiatus with no news on what it will do next. He says a lot of growers are living in a disaster zone with no money and no hope.
"A lot of small growers have lost their homes, their orchards.
"They owe the banks money for seasonal finance and a lot of them are living in caravans, containers or garages. Some just have a generator, a BBQ and portaloo and that is their existence."
Paynter says growers wake up in the morning to piles of silt and they are just pottering around, but they don't have any money to get heavy equipment to clean up. He adds that the funding for the clean-up is inadequate for the scale of the problem the people are facing.
Paynter says action is needed fast.
"People just don't know what to do with their lives and some are facing the prospect of just walking off their land. Others simply don't know what financial help may be available," he says.
"There is no pathway - there is inertia here because of an absence of money and no clear direction. Two months on and it is not good enough.
"Everybody in Hawke's Bay who is significantly affected by the cyclone is for all intents and purposes broke," he says.
Paynter says the issue in Hawke's Bay is that the province's economic engine is broken. He says viticulture, horticulture and the cropping people have all suffered, with some of the latter out of pocket to the tune of tens of millions of dollars.
According to Paynter, the banks have been somewhat supportive.
"Their approach is that they don't give any money to you for clean-up - they think that's the Government's job. They will also be wary of lending if there is uncertainty about when any loan will be paid off."
He says it would seem that there is an impasse with the banks looking to the Government to support industry and the Government looking to the banks to support industry.
"So, there is a bit of a Mexican standoff and I think we are the Mexicans standing in the middle," he says.
Paynter says he's aware that there are some legal battles taking place between growers who have leased land and the owners of the land about who pays for the clean-up. As he sees it, the law is quite clear.
"If you look at the Property Law Act, it states in schedule three that in a natural disaster where you have flood, fire or anything like that, it is the responsibility of the landowner for the clean-up and not the lessee," he explain.
"It appears to come from a world that imagines a very rich landowner and an impoverished peasant (which might not be the case in reality) - but the landowner gets stuck carrying the can for the clean-up."
Paynter believes the situation in Hawke's Bay is of national importance because it's a massive food-producing region generating millions of dollars for the region and the nation as a whole.
"We need to get the regional economy back on its feet," he says.
