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Apple trees in the Esk Valley are still covered in two or more metres of silt, vineyards are all but wiped out and fences on farms remain in tatters.
OPINION: The time it’s taking the various bureaucracies to ease the pain of farmers, orchardists and townspeople affected by storm damage is grossly unfair.
Six months on, in some places such as Hawke’s Bay and Tairāwhiti, it seems like Cyclone Gabrielle occurred just a few days ago. What recovery?
Apple trees in the Esk Valley are still covered in two or more metres of silt, vineyards are all but wiped out and fences on farms remain in tatters.
In the case of the latter, the best some farmers have been able to do is repair their boundary fences.
Restoring normal subdivision of paddocks and tracks could take years, and the problem in many cases is compounded by the fact that the land is still moving.
However, the biggest worry is the fragility of the roading network on the North Island’s East Coast.
The road from Napier to Wairoa is anything but secure. Its fragility is even greater considering it’s not just ordinary cars that traverse it on a daily basis, rather heavily laden logging trucks, stock trucks, fuel tankers and vehicles bringing produce in and out of the region.
The road around the East Coast is the lifeline for farmers, orchardists, commercial growers, businesses and local people.
What irks many people in rural areas is the councils who, supported by government policies, have poured millions of dollars into cycleways.
Cycleways are arguably a ‘nice to do’ thing – akin to planting a rose garden in front of the council offices.
The people on the East Coast have no alternative but to use the only road and yet millions of dollars is being spent around the country catering for a minority who think they are saving the planet but forget the exorbitant cost of their indulgent habit.
For East Coasters and others in remote rural NZ, secure infrastructure means life and death to them, their communities and to the economy of NZ.
The wasted money spent on cycleways could probably fix the problem on the East Coast, but there are probably no votes in this.
Nearly three years on from Cyclone Gabrielle, Hawke's Bay apple orchardist Paul Paynter says they are still doing remedial work around their orchards and facing financial challenges.
OPINION: When I moved to Marlborough two decades ago, I found countless lines of tidy vines, neatly mowed and carefully sprayed, with diligent conventional practices interspersed with the odd organic or cover-cropping outlier, like Te Whare Ra.
If there was a silver lining in the tragedy that was Cyclone Gabrielle, for New Zealand Young Grower of the Year, Grace Fulford, it was the tremendous sense of community and seeing first-hand what good leadership looks like.
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