Canterbury hail and wet summer leave arable farmers struggling to harvest

Federated Farmers arable chair David Birkett said Canterbury farmers should be harvesting, but were waiting for the weather to improve instead. Photo / David Birkett

By RNZ

Canterbury arable farmers are facing millions of dollars of losses after a third big hail storm hit parts of the region on Friday.

Crops have been destroyed, while others have gone to seed due to ongoing wet weather making them unusable.

Federated Farmers arable chair David Birkett, who grows crops such as wheat, barley and vegetable seeds in Leeston, just south of Christchurch, said growers should be harvesting but are sitting on their hands.

“We should be in the thick of harvest, but we are sitting here waiting for the weather to improve.

“Since Christmas, we’ve gone from a typical hot, dry Canterbury summer to really wet weather with plenty of hailstorms coming through.

“Normally we’d have three or four a year, but we’ve had about 12 so far this year already, three being really hard-hitting ones which have wiped out entire crops.”

Birkett said the hail was very localised – one grower could have lost everything while next door was totally fine.

“Some hail damage has wiped out entire fields, which is devastating for the growers because for some it’s the second or third season where they’ve lost crops, so cash flow is getting tight.”

He said the cost of the hailstorms this year had totalled $10 million in Canterbury alone.

“The frustrating thing is that the crop was looking really good this season and now some of it’s not usable.”

The point was that growers had already spent all the money on the crop, so when it was ruined, they lost all that income, he said.

Another arable farmer RNZ spoke to said the losses were putting a lot of strain on finances.

“It’s not just the hail; the ongoing wet weather means we can’t harvest, and the quality of the crop is going down.

“My milling wheat won’t make the quality grade, so I will have to sell it as feed wheat for the dairy industry, so I’ll lose about $100 a tonne.”

Birkett said there was no rain in the forecast this week, but temperatures remained low, so it could take a week for the crops to dry out enough to be harvested.

“While other parts of the ag sector, like dairy and sheep and beef farmers, are doing well, arable farmers are really struggling.”

- RNZ