Drought hits farmers

Press, 8 January 1983, Page 5

Drought hits farmers

PA Auckland Drought-stricken farmers north of Auckland were facing their harshest summer for 20 years, said the secretary for the Kaipara Cooperative Dairy Company, Mr T. R. Moyle. “Some farmers are having milk supplies collected only every second day,” he said. Mr Moyle said that some farmers had already found other work to supplement their incomes, and conditions would worsen unless substantial rain fell in a few weeks. Dairy farmers near Whangarei have fed out hay and

silage in an attempt to hold stock condition and milk supplies. A farm advisory officer in the Ministry of Agriculture at Whangarei, Mr Andrew Shackleton, said that it was ■ unusual for farmers to supplement stock feed so early in summer. "Paddocks are extremely dry, however, and farmers are having to consider milking only once a day. Some are even considering drying their herds off as early as mid-February,” he said. Market gardeners in Auckland and Northland are also

feeling the effects of the drought. The marketing chairman of the New Zealand Vege-. table and Produce Grower’s Federation, Mr Keith Jowsey, said that many growers were seriously troubled by the recent dry winds and' high temperatures. “Tomato growers are oeing affected in particular. Crops are not ripening as fast as they normally would. “Even those with irrigation cannot really afford to keep watering their crops. It looks like being a very difficult summer.”