The Country 13/07/26: Dave Martin talks to Jamie Mackay

A Wairoa farmer gives an update on yet more devastating flooding on the East Coast. 

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Dave Martin's pretty good as well. He runs the East
Coast Farming Expo. He's a farmer in Wira on the
East coast there. And I know you guys have had
a real thrashing, but compared to some other areas, namely Cookura,
whier Rapper, have you dodged a bit of a bullet, Dave.

Speaker 2 (00:17):
Yeah, we've dodged that kind of bullet. Good afternoon, Jamie.
Yet we've had a bit of innoundation on our on
our lower terraces, and I think tween a few of
us is probably about fifty odd hect years that was
under and there's got silver in it. But it's it's
it's not too bad. We won't get we won't get
that country back to the winter, but we will get
it in the spring. So but of disruption, But it

(00:39):
could have been a hell of a lot worse.

Speaker 1 (00:40):
It was a terrible weather event that hung around for
so long. And actually I've been neglectful to mention Otago
Southland and Otaga or coastal Southland and Otago. It just
moved its way slowly up the country and just kept
oozing rain.

Speaker 2 (00:58):
Yeah, we thought we're going to dodge for a while,
but no, it definitely came around and gave us the
tail end. And yeah, that country is not too bad.
I've been talking to the manager on the whole Country
station and he's got a few slips across the odd track,
but we're sort of pretty lucky up there. Two hundred
mills in the back country and one hundred meals down
here on the flats, so it's smaller the bottom end
of the river in town and Worrel, that's that's been

(01:20):
beaten up by what seems to be a bit of
storm sage.

Speaker 1 (01:24):
Okay, well, let's talk some positive stories and farming, because
there are still positives, plenty of positive stories out there.
You're enjoying good returns on live stock and wall hopefully
they stay there.

Speaker 2 (01:35):
Oh, it's been a fantastic year, Jamie. You know, my
dad and I were discussing the day. You know, we
just can't you know, he can't remember these pricings and
it makes it really positive for us. And now that
Hawks Bay's got a good bit of rain, that will
just really set the store market up for Warral and
all the breeding farms up here going forward into the spring.

Speaker 1 (01:55):
And I know some people don't like talking about this.
I don't know whether it's head and the sand, whether
they're just not trusting of weather forecasters, but or they're
all coming out and we're going to talk to Phil
Duncan in a minute, and they're all warning of this
strong Anino event. I know in Australia where I've been there,
they're already starting to take precautions or do a bit
of forward planning. Potentially it could be very bad for

(02:18):
your region. What are you doing?

Speaker 2 (02:21):
We try to go with the dollar each way, Jamie.
We've been caught before where near we have come out
and said we're going to go for a horrible dry
and we dun't lambs and got burnt. But you'd be
silly this time not to have some plans, and we are.
You know, we're a hill country. Majority of our country's
hill country, and so we're readily fixed with breeding stock.
But we're making plans around how we set stock stuff

(02:43):
so we can access it should it get dry on
the spring. You know, used with lambs at foot being
stacked and away from the yards and priories and doing
something we've never done which has put a bigger up
there in the middle of the winter just to cleaning
a few extra dms out and in preparation, you know,
for filling them up and having that order to resource there. Yeah.

Speaker 1 (03:01):
Absolutely, And also Maze. I talked to you when I
was at the Gisbone Show about Maze. It's a bit
of a tough one for you guys at the moment.

Speaker 2 (03:11):
Yeah, like all all the arable sectoring is in. At
the moment, we're getting punished by really poor returns and
and here cutting out of war or where we've got
an expense from the long transport down to the market.
So once again we're lucky in our operation with the
hell Country Block. We can have a dollar each way,
and we're doing the numbers on whether we continue to
grow a lot of maize or we pull back and
put more fodder crops and potentially run lambs, or if

(03:34):
it gets dry, we can bring down some of our
younger capital stock and run them on some crops. So
it's once again for that dollar each way.

Speaker 1 (03:43):
Hey, Dave Martin, thanks for some of your time and
good luck for the rest of the farming season. You
farm in a great part of the country where they're
permitting like the rest of us.

Speaker 2 (03:53):
Yeah, thanks, Jamie, and I'm thinking of all those guys
down south and our friends in town there they're suffering
at the moment. And was she even won a bloody
good spring? To be honest, Yep, we need one.

Speaker 1 (04:03):
There we go, Dave Martin and Wirah