Waikato Federated Farmers dairy chairman Ben Moore said farmers are getting calls from graziers saying they cannot take their cattle as planned.
No one is to blame for the problem. It is simply a result of the circumstances, he said.
“We all have the best intentions to feed our animals the best we can and make as much milk as we can but sometimes with mother nature up against you every best intention goes out the window.”
Farmers now face the prospect of having all their stock on the farm at a time when they had planned on having the whole or part of the herd off-farm.
“You’re sort of in the shit a bit,” Moore said.
Farmers now have to find a way to feed the animals, which had not been accounted for in their feed budgets. It puts them in an unenviable position of having to use feed reserves that would have been used closer to spring, resulting in a loss of production.
What exacerbates the situation is how widespread the drought is, with areas that could take cows for grazing in the past no longer doing so because the farmers there have no grass, he said,
NZ Grazing Company operations manager Bridget Clark sympathised with farmers struggling to find graziers.
“It’s blooming hard.
“There’s been huge challenges with the dry. There’s also been (grass) staggers occurring in lots of areas and that’s impacted on growth rates.”
The nationwide company facilitates agreements between graziers and farmers.
Clark said it has received a lot of calls from farmers desperate to find grazing for their cattle.
Drought-hit drystock farmers are also seeking grazing space.
Clark recently received a call from a sheep and beef farmer looking for grazing for in-calf Angus heifers.
In King Country, where a lot of grazing is traditionally done, many farms are not yet properly set up for winter because of the drought and do not have enough feed cover.
“Some have had rain and have got some growth and turnaround but they are still behind where they want to be in getting set up for winter.”
That has happened in other regions where graziers have pulled out of contracts.
“They are not prepared to take the animals on when they know they don’t have the feed.”
Clark has heard rumours of grazing space in Gisborne-Wairoa, however, farmers there are not taking stock out of fear of not being able to feed them properly.
The South Island faces different circumstances where farmers’ are affected by the lack of killing space in meat processors, meaning they cannot take the wintering stock they had planned to.
Moore’s advice for farmers is to keep communication open with graziers.
If the farm owner has a sharemilker then a three-way conversation is needed if those animals have to go back to the farm early.
“Just keep talking, keep getting the calculator out and keep plate-metering and monitoring the grass situation.”
If farmers are short of feed or struggling to find a grazier they can call the Rural Support Trust, Federated Farmers or DairyNZ, he said.
His message for graziers is to be upfront with farmers if they think they don’t have enough feed.
“It’s a two-way situation and don’t make a decision at the last minute,” he said.
