Farmers hit hard as dairy sector battles towards recovery

5.00pm

Farmers in isolated pockets of the flood-ravaged Manawatu District are being advised to put white sheets or something similar on or near their houses if in desperate need of assistance so they can be spotted from the air.

Civil Defence controller Richard Kirby said some people in areas such as Rangiwahia have been without power and communication for four days.

"Most backcountry roads are impassable with slips everywhere," he said.

Some of the people may need food packages, water and medical supplies.

Mr Kirby said there were a number of residents living near Feilding who were also isolated and lists were being compiled of other people, many of them elderly, who did not have transport and needed to be visited.

Water supplies to Feilding are not expected to be reinstated until the weekend, although work has started on constructing a water pipeline across the railway bridge that will provide limited services to residents. When water services are resumed, residents are still reminded that the boiled water notice will remain in place.

Water tankers will remain at key strategic points throughout the town from 8am to 8pm each day, although some of the carriers will be on standby outside those hours. If a tanker is not at the designated collection point, signs that have been erected will indicate its estimated time of return.

Mr Kirby said the tanker water was for essential purposes such as drinking and cooking and urged residents to refrain from any clothes washing or other non-essential functions.

The delivery of packs of bottled drinking water to each of Feilding's 5000 households began this morning and will continue throughout the day. More supplies are being trucked from Auckland.

Three two-member teams of a health inspector and building inspector were assessing all houses in the beachside community of Tangimoana this morning and will report to residents on the outcome in the Te Kawau Memorial Recreational Centre at Rongotea at 2pm.

Inspections of houses throughout Feilding are continuing and it was hoped to have all those evacuees temporarily housed at Manfeild Park since Sunday night returned home or in other accommodation by mid-afternoon.

Fonterra says it is rebuilding its milk collection in the Manawatu as roads reopen and its tanker fleet is able to return to farms.

Fonterra had to ask farmers to dump the milk in their vats after cuts to road and rail links disrupted milk collection on Monday afternoon and a gas line failure closed Fonterra's Pahiatua plant.

The extreme flooding also forced Fonterra to carry out emergency disposal of bulk quantities of milk from its factories at Longburn and Pahiatua.

The company tipped 2000 tonnes -- 80 tanker loads -- of milk into the flooded Mangatainoka River near Pahiatua, and the Manawatu River at Palmerston North when it was unable to process or move the milk.

Mr Parkin said the "controlled discharge" was after consultation with the Manawatu Wanganui regional council and because the rivers were near peak flood levels, the milk was diluted to a point where there was no environmental risk.

"With no way to move that much milk out of the region, no prospect of immediate improvement to the road and rail links and no ability to process milk on the sites we had no choice but to dispose of this milk," he said.

The Ministry of Agriculture and Forestry said today the economic effects of the floods in the lower North Island are likely to be felt throughout rural communities in the months to come.

Late summer and early autumn is an important time for livestock farmers to lay the foundations for production next spring and summer.

Among those farmers hardest hit would be sharemilkers who owned their own cows and were already being squeezed by falling export revenues, in New Zealand dollar terms, and falling livestock values.

MAF policy analyst Chris Ward said the floods were a cruel blow for dairy farmers, particularly in regions where there had been drought over the previous year.

"Many were just recovering from that situation," he said. Some dairy farmers were now faced with the outlook for payouts and production levels they might not now be able to achieve this year, and the costs of fixing and remedying the effects of weather.

"It will be pretty hard on them," he said.

Arable farmers growing cereals and process crops such as peas said the extent of the damage would determine how much of the unharvested crops could be saved.

Federated Farmers vice-president, Charlie Pedersen -- himself a dairy farmer at Foxton -- said the flooding in Manawatu would cost some dairy farmers up to 20 per cent of their income this year.

"We're going to see people with loss of up to 2 months' income. The dairy farm year is 10 months of production, so if you take two months off that you're talking about losing 20 per cent of income for the year -- which is very very significant".

Fonterra tankers were put back on the road last night to resume limited collections.

"At this stage we're able pick up about 50 per cent of the milk we'd normally collect," said Fonterra operations director Max Parkin. "That is dependent on roads opening and access to farms."

But he warned farmers overnight that if milk was not picked up at its usual time then access was still blocked and farmers should dump the milk . "If milk is not picked up in its usual cycle we are asking the farmer to empty and clean that vat and put in his fresh milk at the next milking, as that means only good quality milk will then go into the sites for processing." he said. All tanker loads were being be tested for quality before processing.

"Disposing of the milk will be frustrating for farmers but I ask them to continue to bear with us as we remain limited by road access in trying to get collection back to normal."

Mr Parkin said milk from the area was being moved out of the region for processing at but he hoped to re-open the Longburn plant at Palmerston north tonight (Wednesday) and Pahiatua could be re-opened by the weekend.

Livestock Improvement (LIC) said today it had had an overwhelming response to pleas for grazing for flood-stricken dairy cows in the Manawatu and Horowhenua districts.

The farmer cooperative's communications manager Clare Bailey says offers from farmers as far north as Coromandel had poured in and places had been found for about half of the at least 6000 stranded cows. Trucks were being sorted today to transport the stock.

The Manawatu Chamber of Commerce was meeting today to study the likely economic effects of the floods on the region.

- NZPA and HERALD STAFF