FLASHBACK - Bola made it wretched year for farmers in Northland

TWENTY years ago this week Cyclone Bola hit Northland and set farmers and horticulturalists back more than $10 million. It was a hugely expensive calamity back then, but a valuable lesson to the rural sector on how to cope should such an extreme event happen again.
The March 10, 1988, edition of the Northern Advocate, with a front-page picture of the Hikurangi Swamp transformed into a lake, had real estate listings showing dairy farmers in that era weren't all millionaires.
For example, 65ha at Waipu with 135 cows producing 20,000kg of milkfat (34,800kgms) was priced at $265,000.
In 1988, after a bad year, Federated Farmers gloomily forecast dairy farmers having an average net income of $18,000.
So a report that the inundated swamp farmers alone had lost an estimated 90,000kg of milkfat production or $301,500 - similar to 156,600kgms @ $6.90 = $1,080,540 today - showed Bola sent dairy earnings down the gurgler. And that was just in the Hikurangi Swamp.
Then Whangarei MAF boss Jim Currie estimated total damage to dairy farms in the region at $5 million, with orchardists and other horticulturists taking a similar hit.
Crops at the MAF research station at Kerikeri were flattened, about 81ha of Okaihau macadamia trees were uprooted, tamarillo growers lost up to 75 per cent of their crops and kiwifruit growers - already hit by a 30 per cent drop in fruit yield due to poor fruit set in late 1987 - had their hopes of a profitable season blown away.
It reads like a warm-up for the wreckage left on farms and avocado orchards by the March and July storms last year.
But Hikurangi Swamp dairy farmer Edwin Smith, co-ordinator for a committee of swamp landowners set up to deal with the 1988 crisis, said the cyclone had caught everyone by surprise.
"We were totally inexperienced when Bola hit," he said. "It was a logistical nightmare. We didn't have the contacts, help and communications that we had last year.
"Back in 1988 it was all individual effort. Last year, with Task Force Green, Dairy NZ, Fonterra and all the others helping, the recovery just flowed along."
Mr Smith recalled a moment of triumph for Northland in 1988 when Parliament debated aid for Gisborne farms also devastated by Bola.
"The Prime Minister, David Lange, was proposing financial help for Gisborne when [former National MP] Ross Meurant jumped up and said, `Will you help the Northland farmers, too?' and Lange said, `Yes' before he could stop himself."
As a result, Government money had been made available to restore Bola-damaged pastures and fences in Northland.
In 1988, Northland farmers were grateful for feed and grazing offered, sometimes free, by southern farmers wanting to help.
With Bola and the 2007 storms now a memory, Northland farmers have been enjoying an ideal summer, with sun and rain producing bountiful pasture growth.
"It's been so good up here that farmers have been able to help the Waikato guys dealing with drought," Mr Smith said.
"We've got 50-odd Waikato cattle grazing on our place.
"What goes around comes around."