Alf Kinzett has powered its inventory in the last two months due to drought.
Photo: RNZ / SAMANTHA GEE
Some Tasman district farmers spent the last two months using winter supplies to feed their inventory, while a drought remains in part of the top of the south island.
Near Murchison, the pickets on Alf Kinzett’s deer farm on both sides of State Highway 6 are a dusty brown. He has lived in the area for 60 years and thinks he is the drier he has ever seen.
The deer are grouped around feeders full of harm in arid pickets. In one, a rear is standing in a water gutter.
“It’s usually a good grass here, but it’s just sterile.”
MURCHISON Alf Kinzett farmer.
Photo: RNZ / SAMANTHA GEE
The farmer and long -standing action agent generates deer for velvet and horn. The land was previously used to cultivate sheep before it was converted to agricultural deer about 15 years ago.
Since Christmas, Kinzett wears the whale and the palm core to feed his inventory and he comes across having to buy a lot more feed for winter.
Currently, the farm is running 1500 deer, a few hundred sheep and some cutting cattle in 200 hectares of pasture.
“We have been feeding about six weeks ago and the biggest day we had was 15 bales, but usually at this time of year we would not be feeding anything. We focused on 120 days of food during winter, but we were not expected to be eating for another 50 or 60 days now.”
Deer on Kinzett farm.
Photo: RNZ / SAMANTHA GEE
In some pickets, green grass shoots are starting to poke the dry soil after 40 millimeters of rain last week, but Kinzett said a week of rain is necessary for her to really take off.
Agriculture Minister Todd McClay classified conditions as an adverse event on an average scale in March.
The driest areas are Tapawera, Murchison and Maruia, in the southwest of the district.
“Low -average rainfall continues to make farmers difficult as soil moisture levels dry and feed and water are tight in some areas,” McClay said.
‘We just need the rain’
Across Murchison, southwards, farmer Shendoah, Brian Dineen, said the wet spring and a dry summer had been a “double blow.”
Brian Dineen with red frisy cow cookies.
Photo: RNZ / SAMANTHA GEE
Dineen and his wife Hannah Milk 250 cows and run about 200 heifers and beef cattle.
“We are mainly grass, but we introduced the diet in shed this year, which really saved our bacon and we are milking once a day, which was once a key factor to be able to spend the season.”
The couple cultivated in Tapawera for five years before moving to Shenandoah, where he has been in the last seven years.
Dineen said the expected lack of rain combined with temperatures in mid -30s have made the last few months difficult.
Winter cultures had a slow start on the Dineens farm at Shenandoah.
Photo: RNZ / SAMANTHA GEE
“It’s a true act of balance, we’ve never been in a drought like this before, so it’s a huge learning curve.”
At Christmas, milk production increased five percent last year and had now fallen to less than one percent.
“I don’t know where we’re going to end, we just need the rain now.”
He said the payment of record dairy would be somehow to cover the losses.
Cows eating swing during drought on the Dineens farm.
Photo: RNZ / SAMANTHA GEE
“We have to talk to the bank and look at our budgets, and are just trying to find this ideal point where we are still making money and we are not pushing much to our winter feed, so we have to go out and buy more.”
Waiting and praying for rain
More to the east, in the Tutaki Valley, the fourth -generation dairy farmer Stephen Todd said the drought also severely impacted milk production.
The Todd Family Mandks 1900 cows on three farms in the Valley.
Federated Farmers Nelson President Stephen Todd.
Photo: RNZ / SAMANTHA GEE
“In the month so far, we are about 25 % last year in our three farms, the irrigated is holding a little better. We were doing very well until Christmas, it was from then on that came home for us.”
February and March were “brutal”, the water supply fed by gravity dried up and the wells were getting low.
“It’s the worst dry I remember recent history.”
Now they are well in their winter diet and will have to bring more hay. The winter crops on the farm were also affected by the dry climate, and a corn harvest was killed by a recent frost.
A cold corn harvest in the Tutaki Valley.
Photo: RNZ / SAMANTHA GEE
Todd said it was a matter of dealing with stress and rolling with punches while waiting and praying for the rain.
“The main thing is now to rebuild what you can this season and put things in shape for next season.
“You expect you to close this gap a little, you won’t get the production, but you hope you can get what it was last year and go through the rest of the season.”
His father, John Todd, said that although it was not the worst dry climate he had seen in the area, he was close to the drought on the farm in 1982/83.
“It’s not a new phenomenon, it’s something that just happens, so we understand and we are very well prepared for it. We cut a lot of winter feed and, at the end of the day, everything is part of agriculture.”
