Canterbury remains in drought with water levels across the region at an all-time low.
It follows months of increased temperatures and below-average rainfall.
Sheep farmer Ian Wright said he’s had no decent rain on his land in Hurunui in months, which has left little green grass to feed the flock.
He started using grain and hay in late January when normally feeding out doesn’t start until now.
“We've spent a lot of time trying to come up with new plans or how we're going to get through it or if it doesn't rain next month, oh we're in trouble,” Wright said.
“Not getting into autumn or getting those rains through autumn, that's a concern that there's no feed going into winter and how we get them through once we get lambs on the ground.”
Environment Canterbury Science Collaboration lead Elaine Moriarty said water catchments are dry and some rivers are at their lowest levels ever.
“So we have things like our fish could die within our rivers if they're very low. Our little creepy crawlies that live under stones, it's not good for them,” said Moriarty.
“For mana whenua, for a mahinga kai, it will affect that most certainly. So it's multi-pronged who this affects. And then tourism comes summer when we all want to jump off the bridge and go swimming.”
NIWA today recorded 10mm of rain in the Hurunui district, which is not nearly enough to remove the declaration of drought that’s been in place since March.
Operational meteorologist Ben Noll said in some cases, there are deficits up to 110mm.
“Ten millimetres in a day is just a mere drop in the bucket. We need three or four soaking rainfall events to really get us back to what is more typical for the time of year and not really seeing that on the horizon,” said Noll.
“As we look ahead through the next, say, two weeks through the end of June, seeing kind of milder air masses coming in, which does not necessarily bode well for additional snowfall.”
Federated Farmers spokesperson Sarah Black said farmers were already doing it tough, like many others.
“Obviously, all on-farm costs are up, interest rates are high, and we're also battling pretty low returns for sheep meat and lamb. So, there's not a lot of margin in the middle to meet the extra costs associated with drought.”
Wright agreed, and said he’s getting as little as $60 for lighter lambs, when farmers need “around $90 to break even”.
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