Is Curtain Failing On Drought?

Press, Volume CIX, Issue 32251, 20 March 1970, Page 8

Is Curtain Failing On Drought?

This last week has been an important one in the continuing story of the drought, which by now seems to have assumed almost country-wide importance, with only a few favoured areas like Southland and the West Coast being on the winning side and gaining out of it. In the remaining dry areas of Canterbury, and in particular in North Canterbury, the rains which started last week-end gave some hope that the curtain

might be starting to drop on this unhappy interlude in the province’s history. The fail in the northern areas, which have recently been the most critical, was still quite variable, and the chairman of the North Canterbury Drought Relief Committee, Mr R. A. Milne, noted late this week that the fall earlier in the week in his area north of the Waimakariri had varied from as little as 60 points in some of the worst areas up to two inches elsewhere. A great deal depends on how the weather shapes from now on. Already even on the most droughtaffected areas there has been a strong colour change in the country, particularly because even the limited falls of the past week were following on modest falls of 50 points or so a week earlier.

The rains of the past week have come at a time when there still could be several weeks of growth before winter and this could put a very different complexion on a lot of country. Even now the outlook for young grass, greenfeed and winter crops generally must be immeasurably improved. If all goes well it might be possible to put the beginning of the end of the drought down to the last few days. Certainly it will be a few weeks yet before there is much bulk of feed and in the meantime people will have to go on supplementary feeding or leave stock away on grazing. In fact to give areas a chance to recover and for feed to

build up they will need to be clear of stock. The consequences of this unhappy period will not be remedied over night and will continue to be felt for some time to come.

The extension of the drought to wide areas of the North Island has given a new significance to drought nationally. Certainly, if as the Minister of Agriculture, Mr Carter, said in Canterbury last week, there has hardly been any place in the north where it has been possible to send stock, then the northern drought has had a rather different complexion to the southern drought, for down here there have been havens of refuge like Southland and the foothills areas of the province itself. South Island farmers,

some of them by now the victims of years of drought, may, however, feel In the light of this week's announcement of much more generous drought relief, like the 50 per cent subsidy on the on-farm cost of grain and meals based on grain, that their northern brothers somehow have the ability to get aid in the way that they have not. In a way there are precedents to this. One of these was the reinstatement of the butterfat price a year or two ago at the insistence of North Island dairymen. On the other hand wheat growers, who are mostly South Islanders, have had to carry the baby in the disposal of surplus wheat—in other words they have had to stand the strain in any loss made on the disposal of surplus wheat. A North Island radio commentator speaking last week-end made very sweeping criticisms of the drought relief measures then existing on the score that they were then largely geared to helping with shifting of stock, when in fact there was no place for stock to go, and with feeds like hay when there was none to be had. The speaker was obviously unaware that in the long drought stricken south these measures had very real relevance—but then his job is in an art gallery in Auckland and he is clearly well qualified to talk to the nation about farming matters.

At a recent seminar in South Canterbury on drought there were some people who were prepared to doubt whether farmers should receive drought hand-outs from the Government. They are obviously speaking in the wilderness i and in a. situation of such i protracted and widespread I dry conditions when the' country rests so heavily onj farming exports for its prosperity the Government clearly cannot let the industry run down too much.' One does, however, feel some sadness, in the light I of the much more generous! drought relief measures now Ij envisaged, for the farmers! in North Otago, who accord-; ing to information given to the South Canterbury seminar, have cut back their expenditure and tightened their belts to the point that they are living within their means in spite of all they have been through. There was only one unhappy aspect about the rains which came earlier in the week. After all the good weather there has been for so long one of the breaks in j these conditions came just when members of the Royal Family were in this part of the country, but from the charming smiles that the: unperturbed Queen was still j able to summon up after a | boisterous crossing of Cook Strait, it seemed that she’ realised the significance of j these conditions or else felt it was “just like home”! anyway.