Big dry brings chaos to farms

JANUARY temperatures unlike anything seen in the past two decades are causing chaos for local farmers And the worst could be yet to come.
Wanganui Federated Farmers provincial president Brian Doughty said he could not remember a drier January in the past 20 years.
"And I suppose if you consider it's January and our normal dry months are February and March, yes it is very, very dry," he said.
The biggest difficulty facing farmers is a shortage of feed for their stock.
Compounding the problem is the wide-ranging nature of the drought, making relief efforts difficult.
"This area is badly affected, but I'm not sure I'd say this is the worst, when you consider the problems in Waikato, Manawatu, Wairarapa and with us also," Mr Doughty said.
Emergency hay supplies would normally be bought from surrounding regions, but this is not an option as there is no nearby excess available.
"I suppose the biggest thing now is to find enough feed and think about their livestock going forward."
Mr Doughty said farmers would have to consider alternatives if the dry weather continued.
"We haven't seen a lot of forced stock sales yet but it could be just around the corner."
He ruled out the possibility of government subsidies but said the Ministry of Agriculture and Forestry was "being made aware" of developments on the ground, and may send advisers into the region to assist farmers.
Hay contractor Bruce Gordon could not remember a drought of this scale.
"There are huge shortages, huge & and February is normally our driest month, so it will probably only get worse.
"Normally, if you can't make hay yourself, you can at least buy it, but part of the problem is all the regions around us are dry too. It doesn't matter where you look."
Regular clients were being rationed back by as much as 50 percent, he said, and new customers had to be turned away.
Although farmers and suppliers had contingency plans for droughts, the present scale meant there was little anyone could do.
"We always dread [droughts] but they do come around and this one is much worse than usual."
Mayor Michael Laws said the city used 31 million litres of water yesterday, with the reservoir capacity at 34 million.
"Solely due to the goodwill of Wanganui people, we've made a positive three million impact in the last 24 hours," he said.
"I'd like to thank people for their contribution but remind them we've still got a long way to go and any restraints people can make would be appreciated."