Having talked last week to Federated Farmers Gisborne/Wairoa arable chair Allan Newton, Mr Birkett said it sounded like most growers on average have managed to plant only about 50 percent of their crop so far.
“The worst thing for these guys is that it’s not the first year. They’ve had three years in a row of wet conditions, with storms like Cyclone Gabrielle wiping out last year’s crops. And then, of course, on the East Coast there’s a high chance of it drying off at this time of year and getting a drought, which brings a whole other challenge.
“If El Niño does kick in and it gets really dry, you need to have these crops well established so they can withstand the impact, but we’re not getting the opportunity.”
Apart from the potential financial and wellbeing toll on growers in the region, there would be knock-on effects for others if maize could not be grown, Mr Birkett said.
“Most of New Zealand’s seed maize is grown in Gisborne/Wairoa, so if we can’t get maize into the ground soon, that poses problems for seed supplies next year.”
It was not just arable farmers feeling the pinch, he said.
“For sheep and beef farmers putting in winter feeds, the window’s wider and there’s a bit more flexibility, but the conditions will be putting pressure on them, too.”
Federated Farmers meat and wool national chair Toby Williams, who farms at Whangara, said a relatively dry winter had growers in the region anticipating a strong season.
“It dried out in August, so people got excited and started doing their groundwork.
“Everyone was getting everything ready to go, feeling confident about the El Niño, thinking we’ll get a bit of spring rain and we’ll be away, but then it just kept raining,” Mr Williams said.
“Every opportunity to get seed in the ground, it’s rained again.
“You need ground conditions that allow you to drive your tractor along and work the soil up, or direct-drill into the soil at a certain consistency.
“If it’s too wet, it’s too clumpy and you can’t plant seeds.”
Mr Williams said he was talking with a crop farmer in Tolaga Bay, who had replanted about 20 hectares of sweetcorn for the third time this season.
“The good thing is the seed companies will supply you with more seed without cost because they want the crop in, but you’ve still got to put in more fertiliser and you’ve got your tractor and man-hours to do it.
“So if you’re doing 20 hectares three times, it’s cost you three times what it should have. It costs you a hell of a lot to put crops in.
“We had guys spending half-a-million dollars last year to get nothing back out of it. You can only do that so many times before you go broke or decide not to do it anymore.”
Mr Birkett said providing morale and wellbeing support would become increasingly important if things did not improve.
“There’s nothing we can do about the rain, but us fellow farmers need to show our support,” he said.
Mr Williams agreed, saying what East Coast farmers need most was a sustained period of dry weather, but the sector needed to rally behind them.
“Farming is a real challenge at the moment on the East Coast and almost everybody you talk to at the moment says ‘I’m really feeling for you with the weather’, so it is nice to hear people understand what we’re going through,” Mr Williams said.
“We don’t want these guys to be forgotten.”
— Federated Farmers - Farmers Weekly
