Marlborough drought a boon for Lake Grassmere salt works

Dominion Salt at Mount Maunganui. Chief executive Euan Mcleish says Marlborough's dry weather has been good for production. Photo / Chris Callinan

By Monique Steele of RNZ

For Marlborough, it is a tale of two halves.

While pastoral farmers and growers struggle with dry conditions, the annual harvest at the region’s salt works is off to a bumper start.

Salt has been produced from evaporated seawater at Lake Grassmere/Kāpara-Te-Hau south of Blenheim since World War I - and now about 1400 hectares are used for salt production.

A drought was declared in Marlborough earlier this month, after months of farmers reporting struggling with working dry farmland and already starting to work through winter feed.

But conditions of very little rainfall and wind have been welcomed by the country’s only solar evaporative salt field.

Dominion Salt, which is based in Mount Maunganui, makes salt for use in food, pharmaceuticals and animal health both here and overseas from its Marlborough salt fields.

Chief executive Euan Mcleish said a sunny summer, with little rainfall since the season started in October, had been great for salt making.

“This season, the summer has treated us very well, being El Niño on the back of three wet La Niñas.

“For salt-making, of course, you don’t want rain - you want a dry summer, plenty of wind and lots of sunshine - and we’ve had all of that.”

Just like other forms of farming, salt farming had its good and bad years, he said.

“And it’s widely known in Marlborough region that when the pastoral farmers are doing it tough, the salt works normally does very well, and vice versa.

“So we’re on the winning side this year, after a couple of tough years.”

He said the average annual yield was about 60,000 tonnes, after washing.

But just two weeks into this year’s harvest, it was shaping up to be well above that, after a couple of very low harvests - or even none.

“Well, actually, last year it was zero [tonne yield]. That was nothing, which is about the fourth time in our 75-year history that it’s happened,” Mcleish said.

“The year prior was about half the average yield... [It was] La Niña, so very wet, poor evaporative conditions.

“And then we really got nailed - like a lot in New Zealand did - with Cyclone Gabrielle, which was pretty much in the peak of our normal evaporative season, and we really struggled to recover from that.”

Mcleish said the company imported salt from Australia and Indonesia when its own supplies were tight.

This was the case last year, when it brought in nearly 60,000 tonnes from Australia.

- RNZ