Half-million dollar fund to help farmers recover from drought

A parched paddock in southern Hawke's Bay. Photo: RNZ/Sally Round

By Maja Burry of RNZ.

The Agriculture Minister has announced a new $500,000 fund to help farmers and growers prepare their businesses to recover from drought.

Extremely dry conditions have impacted much of the North Island and parts of the South Island in recent months and in some areas, including Central and Southern Hawke's Bay, the situation remains dire.

Damien O'Connor said through this new fund farmers could access up to $5000 dollars of advisory services to equip rural businesses with the professional and technical advice they needed.

O'Connor said the ministry was also appointing two feed coordinators, to help farmers dealing with serious shortages.

"The fund will address the longer-term issues but there are also ongoing, acute issues that need to be addressed with urgency. Access to feed is the biggest acute issue so two feed coordinators are in place as of today, one in the North Island and another in the South, to make sure available feed gets from where it is to where it's most needed," he said.

Today's announcement brings the total amount of government funding pledged to rural communities affected by drought so far this year to $17 million, much of which has been specifically targeted at farmers.

O'Connor said the flow-on effects of water shortages and low feed availability take a long time to fully recover from and some farmers would be dealing with the effects of this drought for a year or more.

- RNZ