North Canterbury farmers who have been facing drought conditions for months will have to continue to carefully manage their feed stocks, but there is hope for improvement on the horizon.
In March Farmers Weekly reported drought conditions. A medium-scale adverse event was declared for the top of the South Island.
By June some farmers had received only had 40mm of rain for the year. Drought, poor returns and high transport costs left Hurunui farmers scraping the barrel for feed, with animal welfare becoming a major concern.
North Canterbury Federated Farmers president Karl Dean said at the time that, apart from a lack of rain, the biggest challenge at that stage was the cost of bringing in supplementary feed.
Earlier in August, Rural Communities Minister Mark Patterson announced the government is providing $20,000 towards specialist veterinary care for farmers in the district.
But now there is hope on the horizon as normal rainfall and normal soil moisture levels are predicted for September and October.
General manager catchment implementation at Environment Canterbury Judith Earl-Goulet said in the past month soil moisture levels have improved.
In all, “65mm to 130mm of rainfall was recorded at our monitoring sites across the region. However, groundwater levels are still low,” Earl-Goulet said.
“Following dry conditions, any rainfall will improve soil moisture first. If there is excess, it will add to groundwater and river levels.
“The recent rains, coupled with warmer temperatures, are resulting in some pasture growth, which is expected this time of year,” she said.
“Rain over the next few weeks will be vital for predicting how the region will fare in the summer ahead.
“Without sufficient rainfall for recharge in coming weeks, it may be necessary for irrigation restrictions to be put in place earlier than usual.”
Irrigation restrictions are determined by the source of irrigation water, groundwater availability and the conditions that apply to the irrigator’s consent, Earl-Goulet said.
She said NIWA’s drought index shows conditions are easing.
Head weather analyst and owner of WeatherWatch.co.nz Phil Duncan said the country is in a neutral weather pattern.
“We don’t have El Niño and we don’t have La Niña. This means our weather pattern is highly chaotic.”
This tends to suggest that Canterbury may lean warmer than average and slightly windier than previous years, Duncan said.
“Heavy rain on the West Coast will to some degree spill over into Canterbury waterways and potentially to farms in lower foothills. For those nearer to the eastern coastline, we expected it to be dry and milder,” Duncan said.
“Because of the extremely stormy nature of the Southern Ocean weather pattern this year we have an elevated risk for a brief-lived snowstorm or frost event this September and October.
“Soil moisture levels in Canterbury will be lower the further east you are, unless there’s a surprise easterly rain event,” he said.
North Canterbury meat and wool chair for Federated Farmers Sara Black said most farmers are not out of the woods yet.
However, she said, there was a glimmer of hope at a Hurunui Adverse Events Committee meeting held on Tuesday night.
“We had a little bit of rain and snow last week. Any moisture is gratefully received. Totals from around the district show 30mm to 50mm of rain,” Black said.
Farmers were still under a lot of feed pressure, especially as lambing approaches.
“We’re very much in a holding pattern at this stage.”
She said many farmers have been feeding out since January and are under financial pressure as a result.
“There’s no money coming in, especially for sheep farmers until they get lambs grown out. Even though there’s been a recent spike in the sheepmeat price it’s hard to see where the lamb price will be, especially for store lambs,” she said.
“People are still stressed. We haven’t got to the end of anything. We’ve had a little bit of rain, but there’s still that uncertainty. It’s long haul now”.
Sheep entered the next season leaner than they should have been, she said.
Black said more funding for the North Canterbury Rural Support Trust could help support farmers through “this tricky period”.
