Dairy farmers near Dartfield in the Canterbury region of New Zealand's south island are trying to manage their farms around a massive hump of up to two metres high and 40 metres wide that emerged from the ground in the wake of last week's earthquake.
Keiran Stone is the chair of the north Canterbury section of New Zealand's federated farmers dairy branch and says about 300 farmers - and all of their unhappy cows - were affected when the earthquake hit.
Presenter: Catherine McAloon
Speaker: Keiran Stone, chair of the north Canterbury section of New Zealand's federated farmers dairy branch
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STONE: Some of the rotary platforms that fell off had cows on so we had to get the jaws of life and the fire brigade to cut open the bars to get the cows out before we actually lifted the platform back up onto its rollers. And there's about a 20 kilometre, like a hump in the ground which is up to two metres high and 40 metres wide with big cracks.They could be like a foot wide and three feet deep, and that goes right through the middle of some farms, dairy farms, cropping farms, all sorts of farms.
MCALOON: So how are farmers managing when they have got that big crack going right through their properties?
STONE: When the cow sheds are on that crack, that is where the stuffed cow sheds are. They're just fencing it off and we are just going through the process now of what to do with it. But they are still moving it. We are having a few aftershocks and things are still moving, like boundary lines moved. Initially, it was about two-and-a-half metres, so the fence line is going straight up and then it jumps across two-and-a-half metres, it keeps going straight again, and I think they are a bit over three metres now. They are still moving with a few of these aftershocks, so we're just fencing them off and keeping them [the cows] off those paddocks. There are just that portion of the paddock and they would be up behind it because they can't get across it. They are just putting in a bit more supplements and holding the cows in the grasses and stuff.
MCALOON: So for those farms that have been worst affected and are still facing those problems, any idea how long until it will be back to, I guess, business as usual on those farms?
STONE: People don't really know, we don't really know what we have got to do to tidy it up, whether just with the soil structure and that sort of thing. If you rip it through and tip it up and fill in the cracks, you're going to stuff the soil structure, so we're just getting some experts or people who might know a bit about it to get the best sort of plan of action.
MCALOON: And you mentioned the jaws of life being used to safe at least one cow. Do you know if many cows have been lost in this event?
STONE: No, there has not been a lot, they just cut the rail on the cow shed. There was more than one, there was about 40 cows on the platform when it rocked off, so they had to cut up the back rail quite a bit to get all those cows off. Other than that, there was a few cows with the earthquake they went a bit loose on the farms and went through fences, a few cuts and that sort of thing, but no there has not been any reports of major stock losses
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