Recovering farmers have only advice to offer

Farmers at the southern end of the North Island can offer their Bay of Plenty counterparts a reality check but little else, says Dairy Farmers New Zealand vice-chairman Eliott Cooper.

While there was no spare grazing or feed in Manawatu and Rangitikei to donate to the most recently flooded farmers, questions and answers had been flowing between the two regions, said Mr Cooper.

The southern farmers were able to draw on their experiences after the February storms.

"We can give advice and support," he said. "We can tell them their stock are going to be away for longer than they initially think.

"And we need to make sure that people who do offer grazing are not over-committing themselves."

Mr Cooper said it would be better if dairy farmers in the Waikato each took a dozen extra cows rather than some people taking too many.

"What's happened in some cases is we've had to move the cows on again because of a lack of feed, which happened to stock transported out of here."

Mr Cooper said Manawatu farmers had also advised their counterparts on what the Government would pay for and what it would not cover.

"They have to know transport costs won't be covered. They can use our experience to sort out things like that."

- NZPA