April 2021 Federated Farmers Drought Survey Report
The April Summer Dry Survey 2021 highlighted that the production impact of the widespread North Island drought of 2020 had been alleviated in most regions excluding areas of Northland and the Hawkes Bay. However, the regions Marlborough, Canterbury and parts of Otago have largely been dry since this time last year and are now experiencing severe impacts on their production and water access issues. Many businesses have destocked substantially, have had poor strike rates of crops relied on for winter and stored winter feed is mostly gone.
Water access for stock drinking water was highlighted across the entire country due to the lack of rain required to replenish water reservoirs, dams, bores, streams, and the water table is generally describing as being very low. This is particularly an issue where water reticulation is antiquated, inadequate or impractical and requiring farmers to transport water to where the limited feed is or operate an open gate method to allow animals to walk to the water, preventing them building any grass cover where they have grass growth. Respondents also highlighted
issues with authority operated schemes not able to monitor those who are taking too much water from urban development, causing those down the scheme to have too little.
Our recommendations on how the Government could assist these farmers and their communities by extending the drought declarations and assisting with:
- Continuing the feed working group and feed available matching service
- Emergency measures to ensure water access for stock drinking
- Accessing water for homes, staff and stock drinking in rurally affected areas
- Transport for feed and water where not available locally
- Building farmer resilience and education to reduce the reliance on “just in time” feed planning in farming systems
- Tax relief measures
- Recognition for those suffering that the government is listening and working to assist to find solutions
- Supporting council operated water takes to have automation installed to identify inequitable water takes and better monitoring.