Major snow a setback for southern livestock farmers

The weather is an influence in a farmers business they have little control over, as Southland farmers are finding to their cost.

Major weather events at critical times in a livestock calender can have a devastating effect to production and  gross income. Different farm management stategies like good shelter and scanning can minimise the risks, but only to a certain degree.

Once this crisis has been quantified, a re-evlation of the years goals will be necessary, and good communication with the money men will be important.

Sometimes, other opportunities to utilise spare grass, coupled with a pruning of costs, can provide sufficent income to minimise losses. Unexpected income disruption is not new in agriculture and good managers will cope, adapt and surive, to fight another day. The resilence of people in agriculture should not be underestimated. 

Southland sheep farmers expect many lambs to die in heavy snow that "couldn't have come at a worse time".Fed Farmers president and Southland sheep farmer Don Nicolson said in all his life in the area he had only seen one other snow event like this, and that was in the middle of the 1996 winter. Mr Nicolson guessed that about 300 sheep farmers and 300 dairy farmers would be affected.

The weather was having a "fairly big impact on lambing", with losses expected if it continued, as forecast, throughout the week, Southland Federated Farmers president Ron Pemberton said. "The feed's pretty short because the snow has frozen. She's not a good situation, actually."

More than 400 Southland dairy farmers were told to to dump milk at the weekend when treacherous road conditions prevented tankers from getting to farms. Fonterra had talked to farmers and advised them to dump their milk, reports Stuff. They had been told to tip their milk into effluent systems, and if their effluent systems got too full they should talk to neighbours, he said.

Fonterra Edendale site manager Keith Mason said yesterday the areas affected were Edendale, Winton, Eastern Southland and anything south of that line. Fonterra had hoped to resume its milk collection last night but some areas would have to wait until today. "

Edendale dairy farmer Matthew Richards said they were in the process of meeting with managers to put strategies in place. The priority was to feed the cows as best they could and not make a mess, because mess would affect the pasture growth. "The snow on the ground outside is about a foot deep ... it's a bit of a pain in the arse." Shelter was the key to keeping cows out of the weather and in good condition, otherwise they would not want to milk, he said. "They don't like being out there."