Weather patterns in the region have bought incessant rain for the past five weeks with low sunshine hours degrading pasture quality and high water tables making full grass use impossible.
The physical impact of the conditions has started to manifest on farmers’ mental health with Waikato Rural Support Trust reporting a surge in calls to its helpline from farmers nearing the end of their tether at what would normally be a high grass-growth, high-production phase of the season.
Trust chairman and north Waikato farmer Neil Bateup was receiving a call a day.
“September can be reasonably high for calls but it is October 12 and the calls so far this month are already equal to all of September.
Only two of the last 26 days were dry.
The calls reflected the level of stress the conditions were generating, ranging from friends and family calling on behalf of farmers they recognised with mental health issues to conflicts between staff, contract milkers and owners.
“Then we are getting those calls from people who just do not know where to turn to, don’t have any feed for their cows and really are at their wits end.”
Bateup farms in a region subject to more than its share of extremes in the past decade, suffering particularly badly during the drought of 2008, but the recent wet weather was proving tougher to deal with than drought.
“This is simply more concentrated in terms of its effect. The drought is always slower coming and you can and do adjust your plans as you see that.”
Conditions that physically prevented cows being put on paddocks because of water levels called for a very tactical, day-to-day approach to farm management that taxed farmers’ ability at a time when they could usually draw breath before mating.
“Then you have the financial pressures the season has bought. Many farms are running with fewer staff, people are just tired and stressed with little in the bank balance to show for it.”
The region was unlikely to see a decent milk peak which usually occurred about October 10-15. One calculation put the north Waikato-Hauraki milk supply down 20%.
Cow body condition score was being affected, which would make mating more challenging.
At Otaua near Pukekohe farm owner Judy Garshaw said the weather had bought almost apocalyptic scenes, with thousands of earthworms surfacing at night to escape the high water table and cows coming into milking with snails attached.
“We are also seeing some really weird animal behaviour we have not seen before.
“Cows are coming into the milking shed and just lying down, looking exhausted and just happy to have a hard, drier surface to lie on.
“One farmer I know looked out to see 30 of his cows lying in the yard.”
She had recorded 90 days of rainfall between June 1 and early October.
Her herd of 440 Jerseys was producing 1600 litres a day less than the same time last year or a volume drop of 23%. The milksolids component was also down, with protein hit particularly hard by the poor feed quality.
“We would normally be doing 2kg milksolids a cow a day at this time of year. This year it is about 1.56kg, with the low protein hitting us.”
Long-time Hauraki Plains farmer Stuart King said this spring raised serious questions for farmers wanting to drop down to a lower-cost, pasture-focused milking system.
“For some people this will be pushing things to the limit. We have seen this before but it would have been a long time ago.
“If we were using more imported feed here we would have expected production to be the same as last year but it’s not. We are down 15%. But if we are to rely on more grass-based production, we are going to get greater variation in spring production levels.”
No ray of sun in forecasts
Upper North Island farmers seeking solace from persistent rain will find little of that in MetService’s latest projections.
MetService meteorologist Georgina Griffiths confirmed the North Island has had an horrendous six weeks of rain, with an October forecast fulfilling the prediction of above-average rain across much of the North Island.
“In May we had a bad month for rainfall, followed by June and July being quite wet. By the time we started August, the soils were already saturated through most of the North Island.”
Things then became increasingly dire.
The Hamilton rain station recorded 144mm for September, well up on the historical average of 81mm, and July’s rain was almost 20% ahead of average. In the last week north Waikato recorded 50-75mm.
Gisborne and Hawke’s Bay escaped the wetter weather early in October but they and the north and west of the South Island were likely to experience above-normal rain from mid-October.
The one saving grace for farmers more reliant than usual on cheaper pasture feed was for close to or above normal temperatures.
Griffiths identified the Coromandel Peninsula, already well doused and flooded, as one area likely to remain very wet through the rest of October.
Significant rain there in late September left farmers unable to send milk until tides receded, allowing tankers to get through roads on the eastern side of the peninsula.
“Waikato and Bay of Plenty will be similar or a touch wetter. It is not ideal and people just want to know when will the tap be turned off.”
