Fifth-year medical student Katey Milne has been announced as one of 27 recipients of scholarships designed to help grow the rural health workforce.

Grants of between $2500 and $5000 have been awarded as part of the programme, which is distributing $90,000 to students through a partnership between Rural Women New Zealand (RWNZ) and Health New Zealand | Te Whatu Ora. 

Milne grew up in Kerikeri and has a particular interest in rural medicine. The scholarship will support her with travel costs to placements and enable focused study on an extracurricular course she’s confident will be invaluable for rural practice. 

“It’s a lovely honour to be recognised in this way,” said Milne, who’s currently on placement in Whangārei Hospital and commuting around an hour each way from her home in Waimate North, Northland. 

“It’s really great there are organisations resourcing students like myself to be able to pursue career interests in rural New Zealand. There are extra costs like transport associated with living rurally, so it’s awesome to have this backing.”

For Milne, who started the six-year Bachelor of Medicine and Bachelor of Surgery at the University of Auckland in 2020, news of the scholarship means an additional radiology course she’s keen to participate in is all the more achievable. 

“The extra course will cover reading X-rays, MRIs and CT scans, which is a really important skill for doctors working rurally. The scholarship means I can really make the most of the course because I won’t need to also try and fit in paid work in between placements.”

Milne is part of the Regional Rural Admission Scheme to encourage people to train and return to their rural areas to work. Next year she will need to move for her final placement to Hamilton.  

“The scholarship will help significantly with removal costs too,” says the 22-year-old, who got married in 2023 and loves to hunt, fish and freedive. 

“From high school age I knew I wanted to help people, and was really interested in healthcare in general as an amazing way of being able to do that.

“There’s a really big need for doctors and healthcare professionals in rural places and it comes with a beautiful lifestyle and community aspect as well – so in my mind it’s the full package!

“Specialising in rural medicine involves a training scheme which covers many specialties so I’ll know a little about everything to help keep people safe. It also encompasses women’s health, children’s health, and emergency medicine, which I’m really interested in too.”

RWNZ has consistently advocated for the government to incentivise health professionals to move to and remain in rural areas to improve equity of access to healthcare. The scholarships announced have come from a funding pool provided to RWNZ by Health New Zealand | Te Whatu Ora.

“We had a huge level of interest in these scholarships, and I want to congratulate each of the grant recipients,” said RWNZ chief executive Marie Fitzpatrick. 

“It can be extremely difficult to undertake study from a rural community and anything we can do to make study a little bit easier is great.

“We know New Zealand faces a significant shortage of health professionals in our rural towns and regional communities, so it is great to see recipients studying in a broad range of fields including in the areas of medicine, nursing, midwifery, pharmacy, physiotherapy and counselling.”

Said Dr Sarah Clarke, National Clinical Director Primary and Community Care at Health New Zealand | Te Whatu Ora: “I would like to congratulate the successful scholarship applicants and recognise their hard work and commitment to their studies. 

“Addressing the rural health workforce shortage is a priority for Health New Zealand | Te Whatu Ora and we are committed to improving health outcomes for our rural communities. I look forward to seeing these scholarship recipients joining our rural health workforce over the coming years as they complete their studies.”

Rural Women New Zealand has made a submission to Pharmac in a bid to help create a more consistent supply of hormone replacement therapy. 

A life-changer for many women, HRT availability has come under pressure globally, with New Zealand no exception and pharmacies across the country often running out completely. 

To exacerbate the problem, the patches – when available – are dispensed in just a month’s supply at a time, which is of great inconvenience to those in rural communities, with many needing to travel quite some distances to reach a pharmacy. 

Pharmac has begun a process towards funding an alternative, an oestrogen gel, which it is currently undertaking consultation about. RWNZ said that fast-tracking funded access to the gel is essential. 

“The lack of supply of patches is distressing for those who’ve been prescribed the treatment, and shortages are especially hurting rural women,” said RWNZ board chair  Sandra Matthews, who has a sheep and beef farm in Tairāwhiti.

“It can also affect productivity in our industry, and that’s all the way from grass roots to governance.” 

She knows of women who’ve driven over an hour and a half to collect their prescription, only to drive home again without it due to lack of supplies. “Once stocks have arrived they have to drive all the way back again to get their medication. 

“The petrol alone is expensive and then there’s the travel time when people have got many other commitments: working on the farm, children, or other jobs. It’s also reduces the time they have to dedicate to their communities, for instance helping out at schools or playgroups.” 

In addition, Matthews said, with the pressures of calving and lambing season, getting time off farm is even harder. “This means a one month supply is very difficult to deal with emotionally, when you know you might run out and not be able to get to pick up more when they finally are back in stock.”

As well as working on farm, Matthews has a consultancy business coaching farmers to help improve efficiencies. She speaks from the heart when discussing HRT, having first been prescribed patches and progesterone capsules 12 months ago. 

“I’d been feeling unwell for a couple of years, not knowing what was going on, and just thinking I was over stressed, especially when the cyclones came through last year because I was doing a lot of support work for other people,” she said. 

“I’d first heard about HRT treatment when I was discussing with a friend how I was feeling. I told her I had brain fog, achy joints, weight gain, crankiness and sleeplessness. She asked if I’d thought about HRT. I didn’t know about it and then a couple of days later another friend said the same thing. They’d both just gone on it and found it’d made a huge difference to their mental state of mind, as well as a lot of other symptoms.”

Matthews did extensive research before asking her GP, who agreed for her to trial the oestrogen patches and progesterone pills. 

“Within a couple of weeks, I was feeling so much better,” she said. “I couldn’t believe how beneficial they were. I had clarity of thought again, regained my organisational skills and my mental health improved greatly. Then when I started finding there was a shortage of the patches it was so stressful.”

Living 50km outside of Gisborne, Matthews would phone her pharmacy before driving to town  and they would keep her in the loop regarding stock availability. 

“It doesn’t reduce the anxiety of wondering whether there’ll be any for the next month, though,” she said. “If you’re affected by a lack of these hormones, you cannot function properly, and it’s very hard to understand that unless you’re experiencing it.”

Matthews pointed out that women are 50% of the farming industry so the implications in terms of productivity and family life are wide-ranging. 

“There’re a lot of women out there struggling emotionally and physically with not being able to get the patches and it’s affecting their emotional stability. 

“We’d like to see this gel available from the beginning of November this year, which is what we’ve detailed in our submission. We’ve also included the difficulties of only being allowed to collect one month’s supply when distance, cost of travel and poor roading can be issues for rurally isolated women

“Especially bearing in mind it took Pharmac 10 years to approve progesterone to be funded, we need them to make a very quick decision on this. It’s vital this is addressed without delay.”

The first release of water from the Waimea Community Dam came in the nick of time for Vailima Orchards, which has grown a reputation as a supplier of quality apples domestically and overseas.

“The premium market in Asia demands a bigger apple, especially for the gifting market,” said Matthew Hoddy, fourth generation apple grower in the Tasman region and business manager at Vailima Orchards. 

“If you’re visiting a family member, for instance, you’d take a couple of nice apples from New Zealand that would be cut up to share, rather than here where you might take a box of chocolates or a bottle of wine.” 

Vailima grows 10 varieties of apples on 218 hectares on the Waimea Plains, including the Eve, Ambrosia and Evercrisp varieties its marketing arm Luv’ya Apples holds intellectual property licences for. As well as supplying the New Zealand and Asia markets, it also exports to North America and Western Europe. 

But the extreme drought faced by the region earlier this year threatened to severely impact the size of the crop, limiting where the fruit could be sold.

“In early March, if the dam hadn’t started flowing we’d have been heading for significant rationing steps,” Hoddy said. “Leading into the season it was a dry summer and although the aquifers were well managed between council and irrigators, we’d had so long without rain it’d got to that critical point. Severe rationing would have without doubt affected crop size.

“That would have put pressure on our marketers to find a home for smaller fruit in a different market that might have been full already.”

It’s not just this year’s crop the extended drought conditions would have impacted, Hoddy said, but the following year’s too, as at that time the trees were setting buds for 2025’s fruit. Any further water restrictions would also have posed a fatal risk to productive trees, some of which date back 35 years. 

“Thankfully because of the release of water from the Waimea Dam we managed to continue to irrigate and size the fruit needed to meet the market demands.”

At its peak the orchard employs around 245 workers, and 150 at the post-harvest side of the business. 

In a good year over 14 million kilogrammes of fruit is grown on Vailima’s orchard properties, something Hoddy’s great grandfather Walter could only have dreamed of when he first began the family business over 100 years ago. 

A draper from England, he’d ventured to New Zealand in 1914 after seeing the Appleby Apple Lands advertised in a London newspaper. Initially planting in the Moutere Hills, the family relocated to the Waimea Plains in 1972 at a time the Waimea East Irrigation Scheme was being established. 

“The system turned these plains into 1000ha with fully pressurised irrigation water,” said Hoddy, who was brought up on the orchard and has a Bachelor of Commerce (Horticulture) from Lincoln University.

“It used to be sufficient because the minimum river levels were a lot lower, so irrigators could water their crops longer into the season before rationing started. Following a round of environmental changes the minimum river flow was increased, so any rationing kicked in earlier with the river health in mind. 

“Getting your crops ready for harvest and then suddenly having no water, it was never going to work.” 

Eighteen potential locations were assessed for a dam before the Lee Valley was chosen. The five-year construction project cost $198.2 million and was funded by its shareholders, Tasman District Council (TDC) and Waimea Irrigators Ltd. 

The project faced complications including delays caused by covid, global supply chain disruptions, costs of materials, and unexpected geological hurdles.

“We commenced filling the reservoir in September last year after completing the intake pipework,” said Mike Scott, CEO of Waimea Water Ltd, the organisation tasked with the dam’s construction. 

“Murphy’s Law, we had three really wet winters and springs while we constructed the dam but as soon as we started filling the reservoir it was very dry, so the reservoir filled much slower than expected – that’s when the drought started.”

At full capacity, behind its 53m high concrete face, the reservoir is able to hold 13 billion litres of water, a volume reached on January 31 this year. 

“We needed the reservoir at full capacity for water to flow down the spillway before we could remove the temporary river diversion and connect the pipework, otherwise the river would have dried up,” Scott said. 

“As soon as that happened, we were working flat out through the month of February to get the pipework connections finished and the valve ready.” 

Water was finally released on March 2, resulting in restrictions being lifted for all, including domestic users. 

Said Scott: “That was two days before TDC had been due to increase their restrictions, which would have been quite painful to the primary sector, industry and other users. 

“Between the date of opening the valve and the region’s first rainfall of any significance on 11^th April, we released 20% of the reservoir, so we got there just in time and the Waimea Dam did its job. It was a great relief but also a very exhausting period for the team who put in a big shift and worked long hours to get it finished.” 

Hoddy said: “As an orchard we’ve invested heavily to get the dam project over the line and working, along with a lot of the other growers on the Waimea Plains.

“Knowing we could have some surety around some of the input parameters, with the dam being built, gave us the certainty to develop more intensely with some of the structures to improve yield. It gave us that confidence to keep reinvesting and to know we can keep doing this on the Waimea Plains.”

He recalls another harsh summer. “For us water-wise this was the year of the Pigeon Valley fires, summer of 2019. We did go into some very severe rationing and that made it a harder year to size fruit. The result was we couldn’t export the ideal sizes to the ideal markets for the premium customers.”

This presented potential problems with brand presence, a concern that was growing dramatically at the start of this year too as the drought’s severity increased.

“When you’re dealing with a buyer and you can’t fulfil, it’s especially hard to come back another year in better conditions,” said Hoddy.

The stability of water supply has enabled more investment in a formal trellis system, which, although coming with higher capital costs, Vailima is implementing to produce greater yields. 

“These new developments actually lead to more permanent jobs and more meaningful jobs because putting up the structures needs skilled people,” Hoddy said. “So it’s not just about picking and packing apples, it’s everything else that goes with that.”

Dairy farmer Stephen Todd says changes to the Accredited Employer Work Visa are likely to have a devastating impact on the industry. 

The fourth-generation farmer said he’ll lose valuable members of his team if recent alterations to the system aren’t revoked.

The changes include most ANZSCO Level 4 or 5 occupations receiving shorter visas and having a reduced maximum length of stay in New Zealand, a requirement for a minimum standard of English, additional advertising and hiring requirements, and a new minimal skill and experience threshold. 

“It will destroy productivity of the industry,” said Todd, who is president of Nelson Provincial Federated Farmers.

“The changes don’t make any sense from a farming point of view when we’re trying to be productive, contribute to the country’s economy and make the most out of our best people. 

“The changes will mean having to send good people away and bringing in others we need to retrain. If we send these people away, most of them will go to another country like Canada or Australia, taking the skills we’ve given them with them.”

Todd and his wife Kim own three neighbouring farms near Murchison, with a total of 1900 cows. He said what makes it even more frustrating is that the changes announced in April came out of the blue. 

He currently has two employees under the scheme (whom he asked not to identify beyond their first names), both of whom have contributed significantly to the business and brought their families to Aotearoa. 

Jopet came to work on the farm from the Philippines 18 months ago and is a dairy farm assistant, and Andy is a farm manager who moved from the United Kingdom with his wife and family nearly a year ago to work on the farm. 

“Both were granted a three-year visa when they came and there was an option after that we could have it extended to five years, which in hindsight I wish we’d done because as I understand it they’re no longer able to access this,” Todd said. 

“At this stage, the way it’s written, there’s a maximum continuous stay period of three years, so at the end of that three years they’d have to essentially leave New Zealand and there’s a 12-month stand down period. 

“That’s pretty brutal.” 

An associate at Pitt & Moore Lawyers, Elly Fleming, has been inundated with enquiries from farmers confused and concerned by the changes. 

She has clients across Aotearoa who employ workers under the system from countries including the Philippines, India, South Africa and parts of South America, many of whom she said hadn’t understood the new changes would directly impact them and their migrant employees. 

The changes, in effect from April 7, have resulted in negative consequences for many employers, she said, especially those of migrants in occupations at ANZSCO Level 4 or 5 such as dairy farm assistants, general hands and farm workers.

One aspect of great concern to many enquiring has been the new minimum skills and experience requirements. 

“Migrants have to show they’ve got at least three years of relevant work experience or relevant qualification of NZQF Level 4 or higher,” Fleming said. “In a lot of the jobs, migrants won’t have a qualification so they need to show three years’ minimum work experience but many won’t have that either.

“Demonstrating experience means actually having some work references, tax records, and independent evidence. And that needs to be three full years, not three seasons.” 

The English language requirements are another great concern to clients, she said. Farmers may have spent years building up skills in their workforce only to find that because their staff can’t pass the English language test they have to return to their home country. 

“A lot of employers are concerned their migrant workers may not even be willing to sit the English language test because it’s too overwhelming for them,” said Fleming.

“I’ve had clients who’re very concerned because this test involves reading, writing and listening, as well as speaking. Some migrants can get by with their oral communication, but it’s the reading and writing that can weigh them down resulting in an overall low score. 

“These extra hurdles or barriers will make New Zealand less attractive and mean  migrants have to spend more money before they can apply for their visas. Financially is that going to be viable for them or will they ask the employers to cover that extra cost?”

Fleming advises clients to expect delays in the application process too.

“Employers really need to plan ahead, do a review of their current and future workforce needs, and get professional advice if they do want to hire and retain migrants, so that they have the right systems in place and ensure the process is as smooth as possible. Minor mistakes can have major consequences.

“There’s a lot of outrage over these changes. It’s certainly creating more stress and pressure and many employers will need to look at whether it’s viable for them to continue operating.” 

Todd advises ministers to look at the problem it’s created and reverse the changes to avoid damage to the country’s economy. 

“The changes they’ve brought in are pretty brutal and it makes us unproductive as a sector because we can’t be productive when we’re constantly losing good people and having to train new people.

“When we lose these guys there’s nobody here that’s wanting to do that job. We’ve got great Kiwis on our crew of 10 people, but there’s not a stack of them around the corner waiting to fill every role.”

The result, he said, if the issue is not addressed, is that farmers face increasing workloads and stress levels. 

“Unfortunately that could lead to some pretty tough times with people in mental states because they’re overworked. That’s not an acceptable situation.”

There may have been rain in the Nelson Tasman region but the drought is far from over. That was the resounding message at the recent Drought Shout held by the Top of the South Rural Support Trust in Upper Moutere. 

Guest speaker Brent Boyce, FarmWise consultant for LIC, told those gathered that although brief rain mid-April had brought green to the paddocks, the lack of a second downpour meant the creeks had stopped flowing again and farmers were back to square one.

“Since June, September’s the only month in nearly a year now there’s been average rainfall,” Boyce said. 

“The issue is our soil moisture levels and aquifers are so low, we need three rains to get the moisture level in the soil up, but we only had one.”

The drought actually started underneath the ground, he said. 

“Aquifers and bores weren’t replenished in the winter, and they certainly missed out in spring. So it’s got a lot drier deeper down and that’s the problem. 

“In central Tasman, we reached wilting point on 23rd December – that’s where the grass stopped growing.” 

At the event with a group from the Tasman Valley Young Farmers was Bryce Win, who said that until mid-April, the 380 hectares of effective land he farms with his parents in Dovedale had received only 40mm of rain since New Year’s Day. 

Trying to keep stock fed has been helped by supplies of discarded local kiwifruit. Baleage is already being used from supplies set aside for winter, and for ewes sheep nuts had been needed in greater numbers than ever before. 

“Everyone’s short of feed,” said Boyce. “Looking at stock condition, it’s ranging from light to okay but there are real concerns around how tough it’s going to be for sheep and beef guys, issues with weight on young stock, and how we’re going to get them through the winter. It’s going to take time to get back to normal and the feeding out is not stopping.”

He said he knew of some sheep and beef farmers who’d taken full-time jobs off farm in order to support wage commitments for those they employ. 

Chair of the Top of the South Rural Support Trust Richard Kempthorne stressed to those attending not to be afraid to access the Business Advice Fund. 

“This makes up to $6000 accessible to those who’re in a difficult financial position and need advice about how to go forward, with the costs equally shared between the farmer or grower’s bank and the Rural Support Trust,”  Kempthorne said.

At a Rural Advisory Group meeting that day Kempthorne said there had been agreement that despite greening following the rain, there’d still been no growth. 

He recommended those feeling the pinch to call the 0800 787 254 number to contact Sarah White, wellbeing coordinator at the Trust, to talk through options. 

Among the questions raised by those gathered were concerns for the support farmers would need once things were back on track.  

“I feel very concerned for them at this time,” said one of the attendees. “What can be done to help them?” 

Kempthorne advised that one of the best support mechanisms is the rural sector itself. 

“But if you are aware of someone [struggling] sing out to us at the Rural Support Trust so we’re able to come and stand alongside and help work through.”

Boyce noted that he knew of a number of places having to let staff go. 

“Then some of the intellectual property often goes out the door with them as well. It’s that tough out there at the moment.” 

Frustratingly, the drought isn’t more widely recognised, Boyce said. 

“It’s disappointing when you read in some of the town papers that the drought’s broken and we’re all good when actually the real work’s still to come. We’ve still got to recover. 

“It’s going to take two to six months physical recovery. If we get good weather by mid-July we might be right, but we’ve got a lot of work. 

“We’ve also got stress recovery, because a lot of people are under a heck of a lot of stress. And then unfortunately we’ve got the financial recovery and for some people it’s going to be interseasonal, so it’s going to take maybe one to two seasons or longer to come right. 

“People talk about it being a double hit – that’s a load of rubbish,” he added. “We’ve had a quadruple whammy. We’ve got a drought, low commodity prices, high inflation on farm – which is estimated at 17% – and interest rates two to three times what they were 18 months ago.” 

One dairy farmer said she’d had to find alternative work teaching due to the impact of the drought resulting in the drying up of work. 

Fifth-generation Upper Moutere farmer Keith Best said the extreme conditions had resulted in him and his wife having to reassess their retirement plans. Both had supplementary jobs to help support their farm and they’d destocked to the extent that they are now running at half of the number of animals they usually would have at this time of year.  

“This drought’s been quite unique in that it’s the first we’ve had without the stock having access to the river. The river and vegetation around it had always been a very valuable resource in the dry Nelson summers but now our stock’s sitting in the middle of dry, parched, land in the full sun. 

“We were given quite a bit of warning of El Niño so we could destock early but that doesn’t help our income moving forward, so that’s where our stresses are coming in. 

“Then come spring when we try to restock the farm, the prices will likely be expensive. Probably what we’ll end up doing is putting a lot of the grass we grow into hay and baleage to restock our supplies, but there’s no short-term profit in that.”   

At nearly 63, Best and his wife had been hoping to give up the paid work off farm. 

“Now it’s become glaringly obvious that we’ll have to keep that on because it’s going to take a couple of years for the farm to recover. That has quite an emotional effect in itself.”

Best was heartened by the news at the event that Federated Farmers had activated a feed coordination line to link those in need of supplies and grazing with those who have excess. 

“That’s been good to hear this evening because we’ve only got enough feed to get through to the end of July so we’ll be needing to buy some in,” he said. 

“That puts a lot of financial stress on farmers and is another reason why this meeting’s been good because the emphasis has also been on looking after yourself.” 

The Top of the South Rural Support Trust is experiencing a greater than usual number of calls to its confidential helpline as a result of the extreme stress caused by drought conditions.

Enquiries are mostly relating to matters of financial assistance, as well as advice regarding feed distributors and freight costs. The organisation’s Drought Shout events – which include advice from consultants as additional support – have been well attended, with more planned as increasing numbers struggle. 

“A lot of people have destocked early to significantly reduce their numbers,” said chair Richard Kempthorne, who also chairs the Rural Advisory Group. 

“They’re using the supplementary feed in the summer they normally have for winter, so they’re going to be short of feed going forward. One of the things we will be looking at is how to help access stock feed for the winter.

“In the top of the south we’re all affected, so it’ll be a case of looking elsewhere, but Canterbury is also in drought and the West Coast is just now experiencing drought too. 

“Freight costs are very high so it’s quite a challenge and a case of trying to set that up as efficiently and economically as possible.”

Last month drought was declared in the Marlborough, Tasman and Nelson region as a medium-scale adverse event. 

“I think the difference that’s made in particular is it’s given an acknowledgement of the actual situation farmers are in,” Kempthorne said. “It shows that their plight is recognised.

“NIWA has been suggesting we’ll have a drought through April but what’s needed is a weather pattern change with settled rain over a day or two. We need 50 to 100mm to really make a difference.” 

Although many farmers are resilient, their struggles won’t be without stress, he said, and many have already had to part with a number of capital stock. 

“They’re just under continual pressure,” Kempthorne said. “They get out of bed in the morning, look after the stock, see how little feed they’ve got and know it’s going to continue until we get significant rain. 

“It’s very depressing for them so we’ve got people involved with the trust who can get alongside farmers and help with support.”

As well as giving access to counsellors, another Rural Support Trust facility is the Business Advice Fund, which gives up to $6000 for financial or consultancy advice to plan through difficult times.

Kempthorne urges those under pressure who need help to phone the trust’s 0800 787 254 number.

The line’s certainly been in demand, said Sarah White, wellbeing coordinator at the Top of the South Rural Support Trust, who also provides a link to available resources, including with Inland Revenue.

“It’s much busier than we would usually see at this time of the year,” said White, who notes the greatest number of calls from those seeking feed have come from Nelson.

“We’re hearing from other parts of the country that there is excess feed but getting it to the top of the south is costly because it’s either in Southland or parts of the North Island. Getting it across the Cook Strait is uneconomical for farmers, especially at a time when they’re getting less for their product, but they need to have feed now rather than in June or July

“During past events we have relied on groups to contribute towards the cost of freight of donated feed but that’s not currently available and it’s putting real financial pressures on farmers.”

Marlborough hay producer Scott Bishell of Caythorpe Farm in the Wairau Valley has been making baleage for around 25 years and started receiving enquiries as early as December.

“Baleage historically has sold well here because Marlborough is traditionally summer dry, so those of us on the flats that do have irrigation have been able to produce supplementary feed for those up on the hills, but the level of demand this year has been greater than ever. 

“Normally it’s winter before it’s wanted but this year it’s moved a lot faster and by early January most of it had gone.”

Bishell has kept a volume for his own stock, but still has some smaller bales of lucerne, popular among the equestrian community.

As well as feed, another main issue has been the lack of water, said Stephen Todd, president of Federated Farmers Nelson. He knows of some, especially in the Dovedale and Moutere catchment, having to truck water in for stock, at a cost of over $500 a day in some cases.

“It is getting pretty drastic,” said Todd. 

“Food’s probably expected with dry, but water is something that adds another dimension. It’s got to be one of the tougher times of late because it’s the ultimate storm and the pressure of that starts building pretty quickly.”

A farmer shared with him recently that he is buying in feed for his cattle at a cost of $1,000 a day. 

“He was driving to the Waimea Plains to pick up baleage and bought enough for a short while but said it would soon run out without meaningful rain,” Todd said.  

“When you’re paying that money it runs away very quickly with any profits you may be trying to scratch out. Some people are getting pretty desperate now.”

Recent rain brought very temporary reprieve for some water-deprived farmers across the top of the south, but not sufficient to alleviate the pressure of what many say is their driest period since 2019.

“We’ve had minimal amounts of rain for the last few months,” said Tasman sheep and cattle farmer Tim King. 

“It’s considerably worse into the Moutere and Dovedale, where they’ve had less rain for a longer period. They’re extremely, extremely dry, with some of the lowest groundwater levels that have ever been recorded.”

The year of the Pigeon Valley fires, 2019, was the last time King – who’s also mayor of Tasman –  recalls the region being so dry.

“Increasingly we’ve found it very challenging for the supply of water to keep up with the amount the stock are drinking and that’s a situation mirrored pretty extensively,” said King, whose supply comes from a combination of pumping from the creek – which stopped flowing several weeks ago – and wells, which are exceedingly low.

Water restrictions throughout some parts of Tasman have been alleviated by successful releases this month from the new Waimea Dam. 

This assisted many horticulturalists on the plains as well as domestic users, but farmers outside the catchment are still desperately battling to source sufficient water for stock. Any rain that has fallen has been significantly localised.

“It’s the first time since 2019 the Eves Valley Stream’s completely dried up and every stream from here to the far side of the Moutere would pretty much look like that,” King said. 

“It’s bloody dry and people are definitely looking to shift stock earlier than they might otherwise have done.”

Rural Communities Minister Mark Patterson visited Marlborough this week, where some parts are experiencing their driest eight-month period since 1930.

“Obviously the region’s under some duress,” he said. “It’s a very serious dry and the hills are that awful grey colour they go when it’s really dry, and you could see a bit of distress in the vineyards on the vines so clearly there’s a significant event.”

Ironically, the same day Patterson was in the region, it rained for the first time in weeks. 

“My understanding is that it was pretty patchy,” he said. 

“Where I was in the Waihopai Valley there was 10mm, just enough to wet the dust. There might have been pockets that had more and maybe towards the coast less. It was a morale booster but nowhere enough to be drought-breaking.”

While conditions are recognised as exceedingly dry, an official medium-scale adverse event has not yet been declared. 

“We have released some money to the Rural Support Trust to dispense advice and run some community gatherings to help farmers with their farm management decisions and broadly to bring the community together,” said Patterson. 

“There can be a tendency to suffer these things in isolation and everyone’s in it together clearly. 

“The problem with droughts and significant dries is they creep – it’s not like something goes through and it’s over. With droughts you don’t know whether it’s going to break next week, next month or in three months, so there’s anxiety that sits around that situation.

“It’s still early into the autumn so there is a chance it could break, and there’s still a window where we can see some feed come away before winter, but we’re certainly taking advice from the Rural Support Trust and the Rural Advisory Group and are open to further discussion.”

Like those on the ground, Patterson said what he hopes for is widespread rain.

“Clearly that window for autumn growth is going to disappear quite quickly,” he said. 

“Experienced farmers are saying it’s the first time they’ve had forage crops fail so it’s clearly a significant event emerging. It’s always hard because different areas will be impacted differently but we do recognise that it’s getting serious.

“A medium-scale adverse event does trigger some tax relief, but we’re talking about public money, so it is a threshold we need to be confident has been reached. It’s not a step we take lightly but also we will certainly be very responsive to the direction we’re getting from the people on the ground. 

“We do recognise that it’s a perfect storm for these farmers, with a climatic event on top of high interest rates and decade-low sheep prices, so we certainly are concerned for their wellbeing and recognise the pressure they’re under.”

In Marlborough’s Waihopai Valley, third-generation farmer Tim Ensor at Tyntesfield Farm has been feeding out his cattle and sheep since early February. 

“We’ve had pretty minimal rain after an alright spring but it just burned off the quickest I’ve ever seen it, starting in late November. Some of the creeks I haven’t seen dry as quick as this.”

He’s heard of farmers near Seddon who have had issues with stock water completely drying up and no further rain of any significance is forecast for the next couple of weeks at least. 

Ensor’s strategy has been to sell store stock and buy in barley for ewes, as well as purchasing additional baleage, and utilising a silage pit that’s been in the ground for a few years. 

He has 40 hectares of lucerne, which is cut and baled every year. 

“Generally on a normal season that’ll get us through the winter but that’s what we’ve started to feed out, so we bought in some additional local baleage while we could. It should be enough to get us through winter if the rains come in March.”

If they don’t, he hopes it won’t be a repeat of the 2020 drought when significant rain didn’t arrive until May. 

“On average we’d get around 650mm of rain annually but that year it was half that.”   

In February the government contributed $20,000 to the Top of the South Rural Support Trust for farmers and growers in need. 

Fourth-generation Tasman farmer Colin Gibbs is one of the founding members of the local branch of the Top of the South Rural Support Trust and a member of the Dry Weather Task Force, which is made up primarily of Waimea water users, and works to manage water during dry periods.  

“There’re some gulleys that usually hold a little bit of water but they haven’t got much in them now, so that’s all got to be supplement-water fed.   

“Compared with 2019 we are probably drier than that particular year, and we thought we were dry enough then! We are getting to the stage of being water short – it’s something to be reckoned with all the time.”

Homegrown baleage is already being fed to cattle. 

“We’ve got supplementary feed for now but we’ve still got trading stock on hand at the moment, particularly lambs. There’s not a lot of good lamb feed about and the pundits are saying there’s not much likelihood of rain for the next 10 days, although things might change.”

Kerry Irvine, of Federated Farmers’ Nelson Provincial Executive, has sheep and cattle on 700ha southwest of Nelson in the lower Wangapeka Valley. The recent 15mm of rain was swiftly blown off by the wind the following day, he said, and no further rain was forecast. 

Compounding the dry weather, he said, is the fact that winter and spring were also dry. 

“We’re dry but were managing to get through but there’s isolated pockets in Nelson that are really dire, that have lost their house water and all their stock water’s gone. All some people are doing almost all day is cart water for their stock.” 

He knows of some farmers who’ve been feeding out since early January. 

“The stock a lot of us have got on farm now is capital stock ewes and I know there’s been a number where those older capital stock ewes that would traditionally do one more year have gone too.”

Irvine has water restrictions already and is anticipating additional cuts without further rain soon. 

“We’ve got 18ha of irrigation and we’ve been cut by 25%. Further cuts are a concern but you’ve just gotta keep walking forward and play what’s in front of you. If you need to sell store stock, don’t pretend, don’t try and be a hero, just move them.”