12 | Wairarapa farmers Kim Newth RURAL PEOPLE » Glenburn Station Wairarapa’s eastern coastline was hit hard by Cyclone Hale in January, followed not long after by Cyclone Gabrielle. Local farmers like Lachie McFadzean, at Glenburn Station, say it will take years to get back to where they were before Cyclone Hale ripped through their land. Glenburn is one of New Zealand’s oldest sheep and beef hill country stations. For Lachie, his father John and their farm team, January is traditionally a busy month of shearing lambs and weaning young stock. Instead, Cyclone Hale blew in, cutting off access and power. “We couldn’t get out for four days as there were numerous slips over the road and trees down,” says Lachie, adding that a council loader team sent to restore access wound up getting cut off too in a fresh slip on the way back into town. With so many slips over tracks, shearing had to be postponed. “We were afraid the lambs would get bogged down while trying to get them out from the paddock. Plus, the holding paddocks around the shed couldn’t hold anything anyway because of the damage to gates and fences.” Cyclone Gabrielle followed Cyclone Hale but was fortunately not as damaging in this particular coastal area. Hale made the biggest impact. “It’s fences, tracks and culverts. Some of the road culverts are still blocked now. It has been hard to know where to start and we’re still playing catch up now.” Re-establishing key fencing lines has been a top priority, with a lot of netting installed as a temporary fix to close off missing sections. “As well, we were able to get a fencer through the East Coast Rural Support Trust. He was really good and got some of the harder fencing done through the slips, but a lot of our electric fencing infrastructure still isn’t working. “A big worry for us is that the slips will carry on slipping too, so that some of the repairs won’t last. We haven’t had a reprieve from the rain – it just keeps coming. It’s been great for grass growth but that’s the only shining light from all of this.” As Lachie observes, costs start to mount quickly when tackling damage in the hill country, with everything from diesel fuel to machinery and fencing gear escalating the bills. Ideally, he’d like to make more use of the fencer who helped do their slips, but budgets for labour only stretch so far. “I think some sort of fencing repair subsidy would make a big difference to farms in cycloneaffected areas.” Getting around the farm is still tricky, he observes. While some slips have been fairly easy to push aside with a dozer, others are so large that it has simply not been possible to do anything with them. In turn, that means some farm tracks are no longer usable. Lachie says the Rural Support Trust has done a good job of reaching out to cyclone-affected farmers but he suggests New Zealand must start doing more to lift its game on flood prevention measures and improve the management of rivers and streams to mitigate the impact of future cyclone events. “I think some sort of fencing repair subsidy would make a big difference to farms in cyclone-affected areas.” Washout at Glenburn Station following Cyclone Hale in January. Proud supplier of maternal genetics to Glenburn Station Mike Warren 027 446 5312 or 06 307 7841 Guy Warren 027 848 0164 WilliamWarren 027 824 9327 Turanganui Romneys
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