<\/p>\n
\nWinton deer farmer Cam Nelson with his family.
\nPhoto: Charlotte Cook \/ RNZ\n<\/p>\n
A Southland farmer says fixing the damage to his business alone will cost more than what the government has stumped up for the entire region, following last week’s storm.<\/p>\n
The Southland and Clutha Mayoral Relief Funds have received $150,000 to assist with the recovery, but Winton deer farmer Cam Nelson says that would not even cover the costs on his 160ha of land.<\/p>\n
The storm ripped up both fenceposts and trees.<\/p>\n
“I was talking to our insurance broker on Friday. By the time the cleanup’s sort of done it’ll be probably $200,000. It’ll be $100,000 in fencing and then $100,000 in tidying up the trees,” he told RNZ.<\/p>\n
It could be a year until the farm was fully operational again, he said – a timeline that could have been much longer if he did not have friends and family pitch in to help over the weekend.<\/p>\n
“We’re quite lucky. My brother-in-law, he’s a forestry manager so he just turned up to lend his expertise, A good friend, who happened to call in and do a welfare check on us the next morning, then shot away to organise help on our behalf and brought in the digger he happened to be hiring for himself.<\/p>\n
“And then on Saturday, the fencers turned up with a heap of gear and just got into it. A heap of other people, friends and that, also donated the weekend and gave us a hand and got things done. So it’s been pretty overwhelming, the support from them.”<\/p>\n
There were about 1200 animals on the farm, and the storm hit just two weeks before calving season was set to begin.<\/p>\n
“It’s pretty horrific really, what we’ve taken, but with the support of the people around us, things are turning pretty quickly.”<\/p>\n
He said the damage would have been a lot worse had the storm hit during calving.<\/p>\n
“Well, if it was another two or three weeks, we would have had the hinds all set stocked and they’ll be calving and that would have been more chaos, because you can’t really move the hinds with the fawns.<\/p>\n
The mayoral relief funds were “something”, Nelson admitted, but it was “definitely not going to be enough” for the whole region, with possibly more than 500 trees damaged on his farm alone.<\/p>\n
“If I’m $200,000 in the hole with the damage, other people are going to be in big holes like that as well.<\/p>\n
“And it’s not just us, it’s everyone else, you know?”<\/p>\n
Luckily they managed to get the power back on at the weekend.<\/p>\n
Size of fund questioned<\/p>\n
Local Government Minister Simeon Brown last year told RNZ<\/a> mayoral relief funds were a “simple means to administer government contributions and donations from the public”.<\/p>\n Set up after a natural disaster and administered by local authorities, they provide one-off financial support to affected individuals, families, community groups and marae.<\/p>\n They were not a replacement for insurance and costs covered by other funding sources, but “supplement support that may be available from other agencies, such as the Ministry of Social Development and Ministry for Primary Industries”, according to Emergency Management Minister Mark Mitchell.<\/p>\n