Northland edging closer to official drought

Primary Industries Minister Nathan Guy at the Dargaville farm of Malcolm Welsh when a drought was declared for Northland in 2013.

A_JS270213NADDRY040.JPG: Primary Industries Minister Nathan Guy at the Dargaville farm of Malcolm Welsh when a drought was declared for Northland in 2013.

Northland is edging closer to an official drought as the Big Dry bites harder.

Primary Industries Minister Nathan Guy has been keeping an eye on the situation in Northland and on Thursday inspected a parched farm in Puhipuhi and another at Pouto, south of Dargaville while on official business in Kaipara.

Farmers were hoping for at least 100mm of rain before the end of January. If a drought is declared it would be the fifth in Northland in the past eight years. A decision on whether the region is declared a drought zone could be made as early as Wednesday next week.

While the 2013 drought was mostly felt on the west coast, Mr Guy said the parched land was more to the east this year, with patches of green peppering the brown.

"It's not unusual for Northland to be dry, and while spring has been good for farmers, the region needs rain. It's a bit of a concern," Mr Guy said.

He said he would wait for the Northland Rural Support Trust (RST), who were keeping a close eye on the situation in Northland, to contact him before he would inspect local farms and declare an official drought.

"The local group can put their hand up and let me know."

RST was arranging meetings with primary industry sector groups to discuss the challenges for farmers.

A drought would be declared as an "adverse event", which then kicked in several support mechanisms from the Government.

Northland RTS co-ordinator Julie Jonker said after visiting two farms on Thursday Mr Guy was now well aware of how bad the situation was becoming in Northland.

She said a RTS meeting on Wednesday would involve all the members of its adverse events group (a drought is considered an adverse event) - including local authorities, MPI, Fonterra, DairyNZ, Horticulture NZ, Federated Farmers and banks.

''At that meeting we will make a recommendation [whether to declare that the region meets the adverse event criteria] to the MPI,'' Ms Jonker said.

However, she said, the situation was not looking good for farmers in the region, with extremely low rainfall levels over the past six months and no significant rain forecast for the next month.

She said the region needed more than 100mm of rain in the next month - preferably in several dumps because that much in one go would cause further problems with flooding - but there appeared little likelihood of that.