Farms along the northern edge of the South Island have suffered significant flood damage, says Federated Farmers Nelson president Stephen Todd.
He says flooded paddocks could take days or even weeks to clear.
He says farmers, particularly in the Rai Valley and Takaka, bore the brunt of the heavy rain. The area has dairy and sheep and beef farmers with some horticultural blocks.
Farmers who are lambing will be facing the biggest challenge, he says.
“Young lambs born in flooded paddocks are unlikely to make it,” he told Rural News.
“People are also cut off from blocks of land.”
Todd, a dairy farmer in Murchison, says farmers in his area fared better.
“We had lot of rain but the damage isn’t bad as it is further up north,” he says.
Fonterra says milk collections are disrupted in Northland and the top of the South Island due to flooding.
Banks across New Zealand are offering financial support to customers hit by the severe weather in the South Island.
Takaka farmer Cherrie Chubb has been camping on the farm over the past few days to calve cows.
The Mayoral Relief Fund to help communities in the Nelson/Tasman and Marlborough communities will get a $200,000 boost from the Government, Minister for Emergency Management Kieran McAnulty has announced.
Dairy farmers around the country are in breach of a new law around reporting synthetic nitrogen because the Government has failed to deliver an online measuring tool on time.
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