If ever there was a time when farmers and families could expect government assistance after a natural disaster then now would be the time. Elections have always been at time when the cheque books are brought out and promises made.
Arguably this could be considered more important, at least in the short term, to what the longer term aspirational climate policies are.
The $80 mln promised back in June has now run out and while a further $10 mln is being rolled out, given the work that still is essential to get the affected regions back into productive states, some are saying a further $150-$200 mln is required and the current funding is not going to go far. Unfortunately, for the regions the spending focus has been more about what can be cut. The bulk of the offerings coming from the current government has been in the form of loans to help large business and employers and the government providing the ‘back stop’ for banks and other lenders by taking up to 80% of the default risk.
It would be disingenuous to imply that the government has not dug deep and provided large amounts of recovery funding as it committed $941 mln back in May “to rebuild communities”. Of this $475 mln is allocated to rebuild road and rail infrastructure, $100 mln for flood protection, notably rebuilding and lifting stop-banks, $35 mln to support local communities, $6 mln for foodbanks and the like and with a focus on boosting employment, $116 mln to repair or rebuild “weather affected schools, $10 mln for mental health support, $16 mln frontline health providers, and another $10m for disaster response costs. By my counting this comes to $768 mln leaving $173 mln to be accounted for.
When it comes to direct funding to clean up the mess, there have been a number of announcements which are summarised below:
- February/March, $74 mln Farmer and grower fund for urgent recovery efforts a further $10 mln added to this in October to continue work.
- May, $35.4 mln to support wellbeing, health and safety and animal welfare.
- May, $10.15 mln to assist in the removal and prevention of forestry slash
- A further $25.2 mln (Hill country erosion fund) to be spent over the next 4 years to be spent around New Zealand to protect around 21,000ha of hill country across New Zealand (around $483 per ha?). To date by my count $21.5 mln has be already allocated from Northland to Southland so given it is meant to be allocated in four x 1yearly allocations little remains for the future.
- May, the Solid Waste Management Fund $15 mln provided to Councils upon application to assist paying for the clearing of debris etc from residential areas.
The above allocations come to $170 mln, so a tad under the ‘missing’ $173m and I may will have missed some so perhaps all of the $941 mln has been allocated. Due to the widespread distribution of when and where reports of funding is recorded for the public, this is at most a best guess.
So, given what is being promised, what has also to be added by councils and insurance companies and also given that Treasury has estimated the cost of Cyclone Gabrielle (and the then recent earlier weather events) is somewhere between $9 bln and $14 bln, how much can the public expect government and councils to pay to alleviate the impacts?
Money to be spent on prevention, which is also included in the above list shouldn’t come into this thinking as that is or should be part of an urgent but longer-term strategy.
There will be some who believe farmers and land owners are on the own and fixing up the effects of natural events needs to be a part of the ‘cost of doing business’ and landowners sink or swim on their own.
If the public purse is involved, judging by the Treasury estimates, future councils and governments without building specific funds, like EQC but presumably only greater, will not be able to support too many Cyclone Gabrielle like events.
Even if a disaster fund is not developed enough in its own right to support helping farmers etc it may perhaps be able to support the additional debt servicing required for borrowed funds to aid and assist those affected. Currently there are still plenty of farmers whose land was inundated with both silt and slash waiting for the means and funds to get it removed. So even with the best intensions (presumably) and having the physical capabilities to clean up cyclone impacts it will take time.
It’s not as though the machinery and people are just sitting around waiting to be put to good use. While both major parties have released their climate policies, they are both somewhat light on how they would respond or more importantly fund future natural disasters.
Labour has its recent past record to look to, while National has released a similar looking programme.
The current government (Labour) did set up in 2021 the Climate Emergency Response Fund (CERF) with a $4.3 bln seeding amount. Future funding is (was) meant to come from ‘dividends from the ETS programme. The fund was meant to provide funding to help future proof New Zealand with resilience and adaption programmes although there is no evidence that it was from this fund that the $941 mln was extracted.
Unfortunately, the lure of such a pool of cash has been too much for both parties in an election year with Labour already ‘pilfering, $1.9 bln to put towards “addressing the cost of living concerns’ and National basically disemboweling the fund to use to reduce future taxation.
While farmers and others living in areas impacted by climatic events perhaps should not look to the government in future, opportunities to self-help are not great. What is likely to happen is that areas which look increasingly prone to being hit by Mother Nature will get increasingly discounted in value. This will not help existing owners and selling to forestry or just getting out of high cost horticultural systems will appear increasingly attractive.
One recent bright note is that government has just ruled on logging waste over 2 metres. Under the new regulations, slash longer than two metres, and with a large-end diameter of more than 10 cm, must be removed after harvesting from erosion-prone land unless it is unsafe to do so. This is a minimum standard across the country, and councils can apply more stringent requirements if they choose.
In addition, local councils will have more power to decide where new commercial forests – including carbon forests – are located, to reduce impacts on communities and the environment, Environment Minister David Parker said. Perhaps too late for most, but better than before. But if I was still farming I think I would have to consider that in the future I would be on my own.
30 Comments
Yes. Considering the farming community in NZ is infested with climate change denialism why the hell should they expect to be bailed out every time there is a 'weather' event? You reap what you sow, isn't that a farming truism? Climate change is going to continue to smash their thick skulls against reality - one day they might wake up and own their role in it...........but I am not holding my breath.
I know it's convenient to paint all farmers with the same brush, but please understand not everyone in rural industry is in denial. I'm spending a not-insignificant amount of money and time on water management, all I ask for is more timely and decisive responses from the two local councils who oversee my land, and for them to do their part downstream. I bought the land knowing stormwater traversed it, and knew it could get worse, and I've never asked for a financial handout.
For what it's worth though, the increase in stormwater across my paddocks is mainly a result of rural residential developments covering a nearby hill in roofs, roads and concrete, thereby not enabling it to soak into the land. It's also carrying a low level of human waste with it, because the septic fields installed by developers of the plots are insufficient for the houses that have sprung up. Again, I knew this would happen over time, because a big house in the country is appealing to many who do not consider the overall impact, and I'm riparian planting to try and filter the waste from the water so it leaves my property cleaner than when it arrives.
All waterways on my property are either permanently fenced off, or protected by temporary hotwires until I can complete fencing.
Thanks. Or:
https://data.linz.govt.nz/layer/112726-hawkes-bay-010m-cyclone-gabriell…
...for LINZ directly, or
https://hdcgis.maps.arcgis.com/apps/webappviewer/index.html?id=6ef8fe7c…
...for the HDC version.
Rare to see forested hillsides slip - perhaps 1% of the farmland area that slipped. As aptly demonstrated in the photo and your links. <1% of the harvest landings failed so any slash that did accumulate was mid slope failure that would have slipped trees or no trees - as demonstrated in the photo and your links. Perhaps zoom in on places like Tutira and compare farmland to woodlots.
Farmland slips, like cultivated paddocks, are culturally acceptable - forest harvest cut over not so much.
100% agree profile. The photo says it all. One of my forests on EC had below 1% damage - surrounding farmland over 30% plus. Even money won't help anymore as the cost of fencing, tracks, water is so high no one can afford it. The collapse of more roads means we have to question whether we even rebuild them and just abandon some farms and forests.
The silt in HB is nearly all from farms but no problem just sympathy so they can fix up and repeat. We have a very warped view of what is ok and it may take complete annihilation to make people realise it's inappropriate landuse both farming and commercial forestry on some soils and slopes.
In Europe I've seen large volumes of forest debris after storms but it's natural and no problem.
As for thinking selling to Forestry is an option now that's hilarious, farmers have it to themselves so good luck you have your wish
Great piece, Guy.
The frequency of such events will increase, if not the severity, and other issues will pre-load the problem.
Society is demanding too much of increasingly little, and the problems are showing up like rock as low tide. They say we need carbon sequestration, then argue - wrongly - that trees are the answer. Then they shut trees down - at least, that's what I see happening as a result of this. Harvest-margins are thin as they are, let alone slash-removal down to arm-sized pieces. As a knock-on, that will deplete the soils even faster; more nutrient removed rather than rotting.
But the sad joke is that we needed to plant trees, to replace the one we have chopped down - BEFORE we get back to the base-line and start calling it sequestration (of the ADDED ex-underground carbon).
We are in danger of losing a coherent overview - so thanks for your contribution.
You've got big arms! They're pretty much talking about a no 2 round fence post size. in alot of cases , they probably just cut smaller pieces in 1/2 to bring them under 2 metres.
But at the cutting sites and landing sites i've been through recently , there are tree size bits left over. In those ones , i believe it was piled up to let Whanau go through for fence posts / firewood , but other sites i 've driven past its just bulldozed over the edge .
Distance to a pulp mill , or port probably makes a difference to what is left behind.
Quite surprised that National is campaigning so hard on cutting welfarism for the poor when we are so quick to hand out welfare to businesses and property when bad weather or disease strikes - floods, droughts, M.bovis etc.
One would think there'd be a little more evenhandedness being shown willingly.
re m bovis - farmers are levied for m bovis. In 2022/23 season it remained at 2.4c/kgms . 2021/22 national production was 1.87billion kgms. So dairy farmers contributed $44,888,000 that year. Non dairy farmers also pay a levy. A levy has been in place since 2019. Up to 2 August 2023 $256.3m in compensation has been paid out. Therefore taxpayers would have paid little or no funding, as compensation, to farmers.
I don't know why farm forestry is not talked about more . We visited 2 tree trust places on the East coast, one near the road that just washed out , and one near the lake by devils bend. the names escape me at the moment. lovely landscape , but also showing livestock happily grazing under trees.
Poplars spaced at the minimum stocking to get ETS payments seems a no brainer to me on this kind of country . Great for drought fodder too. lots of other species that provide fodder for stock too.
Coppicing for fuel is also rare in NZ , but a sustainable practice overseas.
Fill your boots. This stuff has bee researched to death in the past 40 years. But I think you know that. Coppicing is nice in theory but very labour intensive/expensive.
"The research project at Tikitere produced an amazing amount of data. The overall finding would have to be that the combination of trees and pasture on the same land unit was not good for wood quality, pasture production or animal performance."
https://www.nzffa.org.nz/farm-forestry-model/resource-centre/tree-growe…
all about spacing , but in many cases , pasture grows better with some shade. Turns out even having solar panels above it is benefical .
Went to one small farm , it was an ex orchard. The shelterbelts had grown to a height they shaded all parts of the paddocks at some time of the day . He was running quite high stock numbers , without making silage , or buying any in .
Yes, hence why I said poplar. The pine section of Eastwood hill was notable for the bare soil underneath, though it was more densely planted than other sections.
Barry Brickell, at the driving creek railway, use to say the older pines became a lot less acidic after around 50 years, and made quite a good nurse tree for natives. Most of the Coromandel has pines interpreted with natives on the margins. We found wattles to be more of a problem, as they completely crowd out everything else.
As far as farm forestry goes , they want the trees to have fodder potential, or high timber value, preferably both.
It's not acidity as all forest soils are acidic - that's why NZ soils are naturally acidic as 80% are originally forest soils, not grassland soils. As pines age they thin down naturally and open up allowing more light into the forest floor and allow more species to take off. If you ever go to Stewart Island take a trip to Ulva Island it has some of the oldest radiata and macrocarpa there - over 150 years old. The native understory is flourishing as under the rimu and totara beside them and in time the pines will fall and complete native will be there. Not a popular thing to say but it's reality and can be seen in many places all over NZ. Funny enough the Kaka love the macro and strip the bark for insects just as they do the totara. They don't care they just want food. It's all about time frames and to us 200 years is forever but is a blink in ecological and natural systems.
Not sure what you guys have been drinking but having actually farmed pines and livestock I can say its not a great mix.
Jack...the pines open up in later years? Initially with thinning and prunning...not open. Then with trees falling over, branches coming down..not open.
I grazed our neighbouring block for some years. From planting til it just being worthless. About 8 years later. Mustering the pines was a lot of fun.
And yes there is a thing...pine keeps out competition with their masses of needles. If they werent so successful at doing that. Well they just wouldnt be successful as the mono crop they are.
Hi Belle. Bother pasture and pines result a in acid soils in most parts of NZ. That is why we lime pasture. Studies that have compared unfertilised/limes pasture with adjacent pine plantation soil find similarly low pH <5. Difference being radiata pine can access a lot more nutrients, with different mycorrhizae, than grassland can at this acidity.
Profile is correct. This has been researched and shade of any type reduces pasture growth. It's helpful for animal shade and you can feed some poplar and willow in drought but you do have a loss of grass production. It's all a trade off in that poplars help with soil retention, not as good as 100% canopy cover. Timber quality is poorer on wide tree spacings. I have seen lower stocked pruned pine stands used as stock shelter and they have been managed down to low stockings via multiple thinnings and still get good timber but virtually no stock feed beneath - but beside a woolshed post shearing and in lambing have saved many an animal.
I concur with all that JL and profile have posted above. The older stands of radiata let more light in and a understory of native develops particularly if there is a nearby seed source and moisture. There have been intensive bird counts in radiata which conclude that there are in many instances more bird life in pine than nearby native.
I was recently in Hawkes Bay and have seen the damage around Tutira. There is no doubt that 100% tree cover helps to stabilize soil regardless of species. Spaced poplars in Central HB helped prevent gully erosion but top soil slipped away around the trees in what I would call sheet erosion.
In my conclusion I think large areas need to be retired from pastural farming.
That's the one , the other was Eastwood hill , inland from Gisborne. Eastwood hill got badly damaged by the cyclone , don't know about the Tutira one.
Apparently there is also one on the inland Wairoa -gisborne road, seems to be quite a region for aboretums. Hopefully pay a visit this summer.
theres been more than enough support provided by the government for farms but i also think there will be a far better return from money supporting farmers than money wasted on Civil work and road cones, the roading recovery is an absolute circus.but people complaining avoid lack of support from the government need to remember this is just a risk with hill Country farming.
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