Hawkes Bay Today
  • Hawke's Bay Today home
  • Latest news
  • Sport
  • Business
  • Opinion
  • Lifestyle
  • Property
  • Video
  • Death notices
  • Classifieds

Subscriptions

  • Herald Premium
  • Viva Premium
  • The Listener
  • BusinessDesk

Sections

  • Latest news
  • On The Up
  • Sport
  • Business
  • Opinion
  • Lifestyle
  • Property
    • All Property
    • Residential property listings
  • Rural
    • All Rural
    • Dairy farming
    • Sheep & beef farming
    • Horticulture
    • Animal health
    • Rural business
    • Rural life
    • Rural technology

Locations

  • Napier
  • Hastings
  • Havelock North
  • Central Hawke's Bay
  • Tararua

Media

  • Video
  • Photo galleries
  • Today's Paper - E-Editions
  • Photo sales
  • Classifieds

Weather

  • Napier
  • Hastings
  • Dannevirke
  • Gisborne

NZME Network

  • Advertise with NZME
  • OneRoof
  • Driven Car Guide
  • BusinessDesk
  • Newstalk ZB
  • Sunlive
  • ZM
  • The Hits
  • Coast
  • Radio Hauraki
  • The Alternative Commentary Collective
  • Gold
  • Flava
  • iHeart Radio
  • Hokonui
  • Radio Wanaka
  • iHeartCountry New Zealand
  • Restaurant Hub
  • NZME Events

SubscribeSign In

Advertisement
Advertise with NZME.
Home / Hawkes Bay Today

Farmers hold little hope of decent rain

By Doug Laing
Hawkes Bay Today·
17 Mar, 2013 06:35 PM3 mins to read

Subscribe to listen

Access to Herald Premium articles require a Premium subscription. Subscribe now to listen.
Already a subscriber?  Sign in here

Listening to articles is free for open-access content—explore other articles or learn more about text-to-speech.
‌
Save

    Share this article

Hawke's Bay farmers have been given little or no respite from the drought with barely a trace of rain over the weekend, and temperatures forecast to soar as high as an abnormal late-March 31deg today.

No farmers contacted by Hawke's Bay Today by early last night had received more than 3mm, and all were left waiting - or "praying" as one put it - for substantially more than the occasional drizzle forecast for the rest of the week.

This comes on the back of Finance Minister Bill English now saying the drought could cost the nation's economy up to $2 billion - double the estimate a week earlier.

"The latest advice is that somewhere between $1b and $2b will be knocked off our national income, and as every week goes by, the prospect of it being $2b instead of $1b grows," he told TVNZ's Q + A programme yesterday.

Mr English further warned that the widespread drought could potentially knock 30 per cent off New Zealand's economic growth rate in a year.

Advertisement
Advertise with NZME.
Advertisement
Advertise with NZME.

Te Pohue farmer and Federated Farmers national president Bruce Wills said "real" figures relating to Hawke's Bay drought impacts on the national economy would probably not emerge until beef and lamb returns in six months' time. A guide could be taken from recent estimates that farmers incomes for the year could be cut by one-third to a half over a year, with consequences in the towns that service the rural communities, he said. The situation has become particularly precarious in areas south of Napier, and through Central Hawke's Bay, in some cases bypassed by the most recent previous rain about 10 days ago and on February 5-6, and without any rain for more than two months.

It's been worse for the manager of Kahuranaki Station, south of Havelock North, where destocking started at the end of November.

Paul Robinson said yesterday afternoon, with a subtle hint of drizzle outside, he's shed 180 cattle and 2000 lambs. "It's the worst I can remember," he said. "We never got a spring, and it stopped raining in October. It's shot now."

Advertisement
Advertise with NZME.

He said that even if rain started falling at the rate of 25mm a week "and keeps coming" it would take until next spring to start getting back to "normal".

Selwyn Dorward, a Taihape Rd farmer in some of Hawke's Bay's driest country, west of Hastings, arrived home from Taupo yesterday to find "about 3mm" of rain in the gauge. Mangatahi horse breeder and farmer Graham De Gruchy was expecting more from the weekend weather.

"We've been praying. If we get 5-10mm, that's something, at least it's a start."

The Hastings weather station has since the start of September recorded just over 85mm of rain, compared to an historical average for the six-month period of about 200mm. There's been about 12mm in the last 10 weeks.

Practical support for stricken farmers has come with the arrival of a shipment of hay from the South Island. The hay was unloaded at Napier Port on Friday afternoon from the Chatham Island Shipping vessel MV Baldur and had been loaded at Timaru.

Another ship is scheduled to leave the South Island today, and a third later in the week, said East Coast Rural Support Trust Hawke's Bay co-ordinator Mike Barham.

Weatherwatch analyst Richard Green said the North Island needed 70-100mm of rain to break the drought. "But we don't want that all at once because the ground is so hard it would run off and create flooding. Ideally, we would like close to 100mm of rain over two to three weeks."

Save

    Share this article

Latest from Hawkes Bay Today

Hawkes Bay Today

Family ties as Joe Helmore art features in HB auction

Premium
Opinion

Elastic is anything but trivial: Wyn Drabble

Hawkes Bay Today

Motorist dies after four crashes in 40 minutes in Hawke's Bay


Sponsored

Solar bat monitors uncover secrets of Auckland’s night sky

Advertisement
Advertise with NZME.

Latest from Hawkes Bay Today

Family ties as Joe Helmore art features in HB auction
Hawkes Bay Today

Family ties as Joe Helmore art features in HB auction

Artist follows in his grandmother's footsteps to craft a piece for Bay wine auction.

17 Jul 06:00 PM
Premium
Premium
Elastic is anything but trivial: Wyn Drabble
Opinion

Elastic is anything but trivial: Wyn Drabble

17 Jul 06:00 PM
Motorist dies after four crashes in 40 minutes in Hawke's Bay
Hawkes Bay Today

Motorist dies after four crashes in 40 minutes in Hawke's Bay

17 Jul 06:02 AM


Solar bat monitors uncover secrets of Auckland’s night sky
Sponsored

Solar bat monitors uncover secrets of Auckland’s night sky

06 Jul 09:47 PM
NZ Herald
  • About NZ Herald
  • Meet the journalists
  • Newsletters
  • Classifieds
  • Help & support
  • Contact us
  • House rules
  • Privacy Policy
  • Terms of use
  • Competition terms & conditions
  • Our use of AI
Subscriber Services
  • Hawke's Bay Today e-edition
  • Manage your print subscription
  • Manage your digital subscription
  • Subscribe to Herald Premium
  • Subscribe to the Hawke's Bay Today
  • Gift a subscription
  • Subscriber FAQs
  • Subscription terms & conditions
  • Promotions and subscriber benefits
NZME Network
  • Hawke's Bay Today
  • The New Zealand Herald
  • The Northland Age
  • The Northern Advocate
  • Waikato Herald
  • Bay of Plenty Times
  • Rotorua Daily Post
  • Whanganui Chronicle
  • Viva
  • NZ Listener
  • Newstalk ZB
  • BusinessDesk
  • OneRoof
  • Driven Car Guide
  • iHeart Radio
  • Restaurant Hub
NZME
  • NZME Events
  • About NZME
  • NZME careers
  • Advertise with NZME
  • Digital self-service advertising
  • Book your classified ad
  • Photo sales
  • © Copyright 2025 NZME Publishing Limited
TOP