The government’s immediate injection of $4 million to help farmers, growers, whenua Māori owners and rural communities mobilise and co-ordinate cyclone recovery efforts is pleasing, Federated Farmers President Andrew Hoggard says.

"Even more significant is acknowledgement that the breadth of Cyclone Gabrielle’s destruction is unprecedented and that this funding is only an initial response.

"The toll on roading and electricity networks will be extremely costly. Urban areas have been pummelled too. Federated Farmers will be advocating strongly to government that its prime focus, and additional resources to fix that infrastructure, should be top of their agenda."

Feds acknowledges all those who continue to work tirelessly to help our communities through this event: the people in lines companies, emergency services, emergency management and roading contractors to name a few.

"Many of them have been out in appalling conditions, and their efforts to help out in many cases have been nothing short of heroic," Andrew says.

Federated Farmers is concentrating on reaching out to hardest hit districts, particularly in Northland, Coromandel, Tairawhiti and Hawke’s Bay, and getting information to Emergency Management to help ascertain priority needs and keep people safe.

"We’ve also been in contact with the New Zealand Banking Association, Inland Revenue and other agencies to ask them to explore postponement of hard deadlines and other ways to help lessen immediate financial impacts.

"For some farm businesses, the impacts of Cyclone Gabrielle coming on top of Cyclone Hale and an already unseasonably wet season in North Island provinces will be a body blow," Andrew says.

Rural communities have many times shown fighting spirit and a willingness to pull together.

"We need that more than ever.

"Feds has had calls already from less impacted farmers asking how they can help colleagues who have taken a hit. We’ve set up systems on our website to register those offering labour, resources or donations (fedfarm.org.nz)."

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