During that December flood, about a metre of rain fell on the Wainui Bay farm in just 12 hours. It was too much for the surrounding granite hillsides, which crumbled into the streams with trees and boulders before spewing over the land below.
That granite creates the picturesque golden beaches of the Abel Tasman National Park that begins at Wainui Bay, but the golden sand held little appeal when it was three metres deep on some paddocks and a solid mass in the dairy.
Half the milking platform was covered with granite sand, other paddocks damaged and few fences left intact.
Mike’s 290-cow herd was “billeted” at other farms for the rest of the season and he began the long road of rebuilding fences and regrassing into the granite layer that had little fines to establish grass.
Subsequent heavy rainfalls demolished his efforts several times, shifting the granite sand on the paddocks. One paddock has now been regrassed eight times, while some fences have been
washed away three times.
His saving grace was an insurance policy with Crombie Lockwood which included business interruption cover. It compensated for lost production and replaced all the infrastructure. He had $1.5 million cover and it’s cost about $1m to get the farm back into production.
“I had the dubious distinction of having the biggest claim for a farm for a while.”
His family has been farming the land at Wainui Bay since the late 1800s and today the property encompasses 430ha including a little leased land and a big chunk of regenerating bush on steep hill, with a milking platform of 100ha. There had been floods over the years, but nothing like the pre-Christmas 2011 flood and the damage it left, so Mike is positive about the farm’s future now that most of it is growing grass again. He estimates it will be another two to three years before pasture production gets back to where it was before the flood because of the areas of raw granite sand.
In the past three years, 3000 tonnes of rock has been dumped alongside the usually placid little river to shift its course back to where it was before the flood, instead of across the farm. It took three attempts and finally thick filter cloth to make it hold. Numerous culverts across the many ditches and streams around the farm have been resurrected, the ditches themselves redug and the fences rebuilt after each flood.
“For a start it was one step forwards and two steps backwards,” Mike says. “And then we started to get a few wins.”
A new $200,000 water scheme, gravity-fed from a stream in the hills behind the farm, had to be developed and damage to the stream meant the intake area had to be rebuilt using a series of stainless steel units to take water from the stream to a dam to the pipe, as well as a flush and filter system at the bottom.
“For a long time, every time we got a little bit of rain it silted up, but it’s finally silted down.”
Initially, rectifying the damage on the farm was a daunting prospect that could easily have been overwhelming, but the insurance, local help and contractors provided the relief and support to tackle it.
Fonterra’s Emergency Response Team was at the farm from day one, working for several weeks to get a few basics up and running like some fences and water for the young stock still on the farm. One of the biggest jobs for Fonterra’s team was digging 2m of sludge out of the dairy and yard, with a solid mass 4m deep in the herringbone pit. Mike was never left to tackle the damage alone.
“It all made you feel better. Just having people around you to share it with and being able to throw some money at it and get some decent machinery in like diggers and dump trucks, as well as plumbers. You’ve got all these people helping you so you don’t ever dwell on it.
“I wouldn’t be here on the farm without that insurance policy. Financially, mentally, physically, you couldn’t do it otherwise.”
The farm has gone quiet now the contractors have completed their work.
Mike has just one full-time employee, and a mate who works part-time on the tractor on the remaining repair work.
Ironically, the flood has got Mike back into milking cows and enjoying it. In years past he milked 400 cows twice a day until he’d had enough of that and dropped cow numbers to 200 and added beef. After a couple of years he worked out it was more work rearing beef calves and shifting fences for less money, so he built up the herd to 280 and employed a manager.
In the season following the flood, he brought 240 cows back on to the farm and it was a pleasure to be able to have the farm up and running and milking cows. With a huge amount of work still to be done on the farm and getting grass established, he milked once a day (OAD) and he’s still enjoying it. Last season he lifted cow numbers to 260 and produced 81,000kg milksolids (MS) and this year increased numbers to 290 cows that are on track for 100,000kg MS on a grass-only system.
By the time the farm is back to its pre-flood state, he expects OAD to at least equal, if not pass its former production though that’s partly because of better genetics.
It’s also had considerable regrassing, though the granite sand still has a long way to go and non-irrigated areas are very drought-prone. Effluent ponds are being emptied on to the raw granite to build the soil up and in most areas the grass is getting established, especially the 64ha with K-line irrigation. On those irrigated paddocks, Mike has planted ryegrass One50, white clovers and plantain, while the non-irrigated areas have the ryegrass Samson, plantain and white clovers.
The struggle to get pasture growing well means there’s been little surplus for supplements, so Mike has been buying in hay.
This season there was enough surplus to finally make some pit silage. It’s one more step closer to the farm getting back to full production.
Key points
Location: Wainui Bay, Golden Bay
Area: 430ha, milking platform 100ha
Herd: 290 cows
Production: Targeting 100,000kg milksolids.
