Experienced farmer says Tasman's drought is worst he's seen

Some farmers in the Tasman District have spent the last two months using winter supplies to feed their stock, as a drought continues across part of the top of the South Island.

Near Murchison, the paddocks on Alf Kinzett's deer farm either side of State Highway 6 are a dusty brown. He's lived in the area for 60 years and reckons it's the driest he's ever seen it.

Deer are clustered around feeders full of baleage in barren paddocks. In one, a hind is standing in a water trough.

"It's normally good grass out here, but it's just barren."

The farmer and long-time stock agent breeds stags for velvet and antler production. The land was previously used to farm sheep before being converted to farm deer, around 15 years ago.

Since Christmas, Kinzett has been using baleage and palm kernel to feed his stock and he is faced with having to buy in a lot more feed for winter.

The farm is currently running 1500 deer, a few hundred ewes and some beef cattle across 200 hectares of grazing land.

"We've been feeding out for about six weeks now and the biggest day we had was 15 bales, but normally this time of year we wouldn't be feeding anything out. We concentrate on 120 days of feeding during the winter, but we didn't expect to be feeding out for another 50 or 60 days now."

In some paddocks, green shoots of grass are starting to poke through the dry ground after 40 millimetres of rain last week but Kinzett said a week's worth of rain is what's needed for it to really take off.

Agriculture Minister Todd McClay classified the conditions as a medium-scale adverse event in March.

The driest areas are Tapawera, Murchison and Maruia in the south west of the district.

"Below-average rainfall continues to make it difficult for farmers as soil moisture levels dry out and stock feed and water become tight in some areas," McClay said.

'We just need the rain'

On the other side of Murchison heading south, Shenandoah dairy farmer Brian Dineen said the wet spring and a dry summer had been a "double whammy".

Dineen and his wife Hannah milk 250 cows and run around 200 heifers and beef cattle.

"We're mainly grass only but we have introduced in-shed feeding this year which has really saved our bacon and we are milking once a day now which has been a key factor in being able to get through the season."

The couple farmed in Tapawera for five years before moving to Shenandoah, where they have been for the last seven years.

Dineen said the lack of forecast rain combined with temperatures in the mid-30s had made the last few months tough.

"It is a real balancing act, we've never been in a drought like this before so it's been a huge learning curve."

At Christmas, milk production was up five percent on last year and it had now fallen to less than one percent.

"I don't know where we are going to end up, we just need the rain now."

He said the record dairy payout would go some way to covering the losses.

"We've got to talk to the bank and look at our budgets and it's just trying to find that sweet spot where we are still making money and we are not pushing too far into our winter feed so we have to go out and buy more."

Hoping and praying for rain

Further east in the Tutaki Valley, fourth generation dairy farmer Stephen Todd said the drought had also severely impacted milk production.

The Todd family milks 1900 cows across three farms in the valley.

"On the month to date we are about 25 percent down on last year across our three farms, the irrigated one is holding on slightly better. We were going pretty well up until Christmas, it was from then on that it has hit home for us."

February and March had been "brutal", gravity fed water supplies had dried up and wells were getting low.

"It's the worst dry I can remember in recent history."

Now, they are well into their winter feed and will have to bring in more hay. Winter crops on the farm had also been affected by the dry weather, and a maize crop was killed off by a recent frost.

Todd said it was a matter of dealing with the stress and rolling with the punches, while hoping and praying for rain.

"The main thing is now to rebuild what you can of this season and get things in shape for next season.

"You hope you can close that gap a bit, you are not going to catch production but you hope you can catch what you were on last year and get through the rest of the season."

His father, John Todd, said while it was not the worst dry weather he'd seen in the area it 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 get it and we're pretty well prepared for it. We cut a lot of winter feed and at the end of the day it's all part of farming."