Government to provide $65,000 for wrecked farms

5.00am

The Government plans to offer "new start grants" of up to $65,000 for farmers forced to leave their properties as a result of the February floods.

The grants are to ensure that farmers are left with equity up to $65,000 family, as long as all institutions with a financial interest in the wrecked farms write-off all remaining debt following sale of the property.

The new start grants -- which will be available to sharemilkers as well as property owners -- are to be developed by the Ministry of Agriculture and Forestry (MAF) and the Treasury department.

The agricultural recovery programme run by MAF for farmers and foresters hit by the three-day lower North Island storm which began on February 15 will be separate to relief work by other agencies.

The main help will be provided in two key areas: essential infrastructure, and crop re-establishment.

"On-farm" infrastructure eligible for 75 per cent Government assistance will include: boundary fencing; essential access (tracks, races, farm bridges, culverts); re-establishing silt and water damaged pasture; re-establishing essential uninsurable water supplies (dams, reticulation, troughs); re-establishing essential drainage; re-establishing essential uninsurable stockyards, repairing effluent ponds , re-establishing "on-farm" flood protection .

Crop re-establishment will be eligible for 90 per cent Government assistance are vegetable, process, orchard and arable crops, including forage cash crops, which were damaged by water or silt.

Help for foresters will be in "facilitating" the use of skilled labour and equipment to enable harvest windthrown timber.

To be eligible, farmers will have to be in one of the following district councils: South Taranaki, Central Hawke's Bay, Wanganui, Tararua, Ruapehu, Masterton, Rangitikei, Carterton Manawatu, South Wairarapa, Horowhenua, Kapiti.

They must also have been "significantly affected" by the lower North Island storm between February 15 and 18, and earn 51 per cent of their gross income from farming, cropping, vegetable growing, forestry activities or any combination of these.

Payments will only be made for non-insurable qualifying items, and farmers will pay the first $10,000 worth of spending, though only on the first payment request, not on each payment request that is made.

In the repair or replacement of boundary fencing, each neighbour can apply for 50 per cent of the cost but where the boundary is along roads, railway lines and rivers and parts of the DOC estate excluded from the requirements of the Fencing Act the payment will be based on 75 per cent of the total cost.

Funding for essential access will cover moving stock to stockyards or cowsheds; transporting machinery essential for crop establishment and harvesting or for pruning and harvesting of forestry, or to restore water systems and fencing and supplying supplementary feed.

Re-establishing silt and water damaged pasture will cover three-quarters of the cost of re-grassing, and temporary pasture re-establishment, to be followed by permanent pasture when the soil is capable of being sown in permanent pasture, before autumn 2005. Where a farmer uses his own machinery, the work will be eligible for payment of labour at $15 hour and fuel.

Re-establishing essential uninsurable water supplies includes: cleaning out of silt from dams, re-building dams, pipes and troughs.

The government aid will also fund essential drainage, cinluding prevention of future floods, and cleaning drains, but not tile and mole drains and subsoil drainage, or drains covered by regional council community drainage schemes.

Some on-farm flood protection works will receive support, inlcuding replacing stopbanks, but there will be no help for stabilising waterway banks with work not approved by the regional council or undertaken as regional council works, and flood protection work that is the responsibility of a regional council will not get money.

Cleaning or replacement of effluent ponds will be paid.

Crop re-establishment grants will cover cash crops, vegetable, process or arable crops including maize grown for sale, crops made unharvestable.

In orchards , the aid will also cover silt and debris removal from around plants, and replacement of vines or trees.

The forestry sector get help with essential infrastructure such as restoration of essential internal access tracks and boundary fencing, and support for transporting harvest equipment from outside the region to affected blocks.

There will be funding for skilled labour for clean-up and harvesting activities using out-of-region forestry workers.

Government support is also being provided to local government to enable full and urgent restoration of local roading to a standard for transportation of heavy equipment and logs.

The government has approved $11.25 million for rates relief.

The latest date for receiving payment requests will be 1 May 2005, with all payments to completed by 30 June 2005.

- NZPA