Volunteers helping with an on-farm clean up during March.
Farmers in the Tararua District have had it tough recently, but they will get there, says Rural Support Trust Tararua co-ordinator Jane Tylee.
It’s been almost three months to the day since Cyclone Gabrielle ripped through communities along the East Coast from Northland to the Wairarapa.
Around 200 farmers were affected in the Tararua District, but it was often felt this fact was left out due to the amount of damage in Hawke’s Bay and Tairawhiti.
“Nobody is denying it is massive up there,” Tylee said.
“People may not fully understand the impacts to Tararua District.”
Farmers were quite humble and generally didn’t want to “go out there and say it’s been really bad”.
Tylee said that was a lot of “number eight wire” thinking.
She said it was important that the farming community knows there was support available and they didn’t have to do it alone.
“Farmers are isolated in a lot of ways.”
Many rural communities didn’t have connectivity, either due to poor signals from cell towers or just simply the fact that at the end of the day, they were just too tired to connect.
“During that response phase, people run on adrenaline. They’re busy. And then we get to the stage [where] that all starts to tail off and we see people get really tired, grumpy and short. They’re just over it. Life has become much harder than it already was.”
After the cyclone, Rural Support was part of the initial team that went out with welfare teams comprised of elected members and staff from Tararua District Council as well as iwi representatives.
“We went around and knocked on doors.”
Tylee said many of those they were visiting had no communications and the teams had to wait until roads impacted by slips and flooding were opened up.
She said a lot of planning was involved in the effort.
“So we could get in and knock on doors and make sure that they were doing okay.”
Some farmers did ask for extra support, either for wellbeing or on-farm support and the team had been doing a lot of work behind the scenes to build that support.
With the district now in the recovery phase, the trust has taken the rural lead, starting with a hui which identified key areas for support, such as on-farm clean-up.
Tylee said research had shown that practical support was the best thing people could do to support others’ wellbeing following an adverse event.
She said those practical things could be going out to clean up fencing or bringing out fencing gear.
There have already been volunteers helping with the on-farm cleanup and Rural Support has collaborated with other rural groups such as MPI, DairyNZ, Federated Farmers, Beef + Lamb NZ, Fonterra and local iwi.
People from communities as far as Whanganui have also helped with working bees and Alliance Group had supported along with students from Dannevirke High School.
A second key issue was one-on-one support, the third was around infrastructure, such as roading.
“Infrastructure has been quite compromised,” Tylee said.
Some roads, such as Coast Road leading to Akitio, were cut off by major slips following the cyclone.
Work was now under way through the Marainanga Gorge to provide limited access, which would be a temporary measure until a permanent solution could be found.
Tylee said there were also environmental issues, such as damage on farms from slipping and flooding and internal infrastructure.
“Your fences, your culverts, your bridges and your yards, all of that kind of thing.
“Helping farmers navigate that environmental regulatory processes through Horizons [Regional Council].”
The last key issue was financial, helping farmers navigate the things they needed to know, whether it was on-farm business, tax or anything else.
Tylee said farmers were pretty resilient and liked to just “crack on” and get the practical stuff done, but it was important to recognise that it had been a tough time.
“It’s been such a wet season.”
The communities had also been able to support each other through get-togethers, such as the Cyclone Shout in Pongaroa.
“I think those small communities are fantastic at doing that.”
Tylee said the most important thing was people looking out for their neighbours, checking in on them if they hadn’t been to events.
“You can’t underestimate what that does to somebody.
“Just to say: ‘how are you?’, getting together and just being able to share.”
Donations had come in from a lot of sources, from the Adopt-a-community scheme, where other councils have lent support, to local schools doing their bit.
Tylee said she was very grateful for all the donations.
“We’re working really hard on getting all of that money back into the community.
“It’s through the donations that we can do some good work and get some support on the farm.”
The trust would continue to support those affected by the cyclone, especially as some people were feeling nervous wondering what winter was going to bring.
“We can’t fix everything, but what we can do is help them navigate or get them to people who will give the best advice.”
Those still needing that support can contact Rural Support Trust on 0800 787 254 for a confidential chat.