Latest / Best of Business / Jamie Mackay: The Country host on the drought conditions impacting Taranaki farmers

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Jamie Mackay: The Country host on the drought conditions impacting Taranaki farmers · Best of Business

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  Speaker 1: You're listening to a podcast from Newstalk zed B. Follow
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  Speaker 1: this and our wide range of podcasts now on iHeartRadio.
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  Speaker 2: Jason Wall's Out of Vietnam coming up after the news
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  Speaker 2: right now. Jamie mckaye is hosted The Country and here
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  Speaker 2: to wrap the real news for us, Jamie Gaday, Kid
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  Speaker 2: a Ryan. So we've got drought. We'll get to that soon,
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  Speaker 2: but we'll start with the good news. The Golden Shares
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  Speaker 2: is on.
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  Speaker 3: Yeah, sixty third Golden Shares has started the day in
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  Speaker 3: Masterton and the magnificent Masterton War Memorial Stadium. And I
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  Speaker 3: can tell you on Saturday night, Ryan, when that big
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  Speaker 3: Open Finals on on and I've been lucky enough to
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  Speaker 3: be there a couple of times, the roof literally gets lifted.
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  Speaker 3: So it's all on for Saturday night. But I think
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  Speaker 3: one of the really good things about the Golden Shares
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  Speaker 3: this year is the number of entries in the Novice
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  Speaker 3: and Junior Sharing and Wool Handling events. They make up
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  Speaker 3: forty four percent of the nearly five hundred entries in
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  Speaker 3: the nine Golden Shares Sharing and Wool Handling Championship titles
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  Speaker 3: that will be decided by Saturday night. Now, just by
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  Speaker 3: way of going back in time, are we But because
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  Speaker 3: bearing in mind, we've lost a hell of a lot
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  Speaker 3: of sheep in this country over the past forty years.
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  Speaker 3: Sharing entries across all grades peaked in nineteen eighty at
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  Speaker 3: five hundred and eighty six and that was when we
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  Speaker 3: had the World Champs on at the same time, without
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  Speaker 3: the World Champs five hundred and forty two years later
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  Speaker 3: in nineteen eighty two. But just to put that into
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  Speaker 3: some context for you, Ryan, we had seventy million sheep
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  Speaker 3: in nineteen eighty two. We've now got less than twenty
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  Speaker 3: four million. Now when it comes to that big final
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  Speaker 3: on Saturday night, the tab I had to look at
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  Speaker 3: the odds a wee bit earlier this afternoon, they won't
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  Speaker 3: have changed. Leon Samuel's out of Southland. He's the current
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  Speaker 3: title holder. He's at four bucks, but watch out for
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  Speaker 3: Roland Smith, eight times champion at four dollars. This is
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  Speaker 3: a guy who could almost win it blindfolded. He doesn't
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  Speaker 3: do much sharing these days. He farms and he loved
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  Speaker 3: driving a tractor and a digger. He gets on the
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  Speaker 3: handpiece of a week or two before Golden Shares and
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  Speaker 3: watch out for him. Incidentally, Sir David Fagan holds the
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  Speaker 3: most titles, sixteen one between eighty six and two thousand
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  Speaker 3: and nine. The local farmer David Buick is a bit
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  Speaker 3: of a favorite at four dollars fifty. Tower Henderson out
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  Speaker 3: of Northland the hottest share of the yares at six fifty,
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  Speaker 3: and Gavin Much, the Scotsman who won in twenty fifteen,
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  Speaker 3: is paying six dollars fifty. Wall Handling Joel Hanari an
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  Speaker 3: absolute hot favorite at a dollar eighty. But if you
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  Speaker 3: want the kiss of death from me Ryan, go and
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  Speaker 3: put twenty bucks on Roland Smith to make it nine
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  Speaker 3: open titles.
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  Speaker 2: Roland Smith, you reckon sounds like it sounds like a
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  Speaker 2: great time in Masterton. Hey, I'm not such a great
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  Speaker 2: time in Tartanuki though. And it's been about what a
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  Speaker 2: year and a half of lower than average rainfall and
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  Speaker 2: then it's gotten really bad in the last couple of months.
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  Speaker 2: But the government is coming to the party here.
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  Speaker 3: Yeah, they've declared a medium scale adverse event across the province.
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  Speaker 3: And I guess Taraniki is it's one of those provinces that,
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  Speaker 3: yes they can get a bit summer dry, but they're
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  Speaker 3: not a traditional sort of summer drought region like the
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  Speaker 3: Wire Wrapper or Hawk's Bay or even the east coast
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  Speaker 3: of the South Island. So look that had way lower
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  Speaker 3: than average rainfall. The locals are saying they haven't seen
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  Speaker 3: it this dry so early in more than fifty years.
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  Speaker 3: You've got to go back to the nineteen seventies to
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  Speaker 3: have it so bad in Taranaki. They're having to not
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  Speaker 3: only truck and feed, but they're also having to truck
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  Speaker 3: in water. And that is the killer Ryan because if
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  Speaker 3: you run out of water on your farm, you basically
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  Speaker 3: run out of moves on the chessboard. So this adverse
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  Speaker 3: event declaration means extra funding from rural supports, counseling and
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  Speaker 3: advisory services, with flexibility around tax payments, particularly provisional tax payments.
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  Speaker 3: And it's also it also opens up the potential for
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  Speaker 3: the rural assistance payments from the Ministry of Social Development
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  Speaker 3: where it's been applicable. Dairy herds have dried off, you know,
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  Speaker 3: normally they wouldn't dry off until April or May. They've
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  Speaker 3: dried those off early. Any excess stock that won't be
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  Speaker 3: needed next year have taken an early trip to the works.
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  Speaker 3: That's bad news for them. But we just hope for
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  Speaker 3: the Taranaki. In fact, the wider North Island, especially the
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  Speaker 3: West and the North dry. As you'll know in Auckland, Ryan, everywhere,
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  Speaker 3: we're really hoping for some rain. But my guy at
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  Speaker 3: weather Watch, Phil Duncan, says, don't hold your breath for
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  Speaker 3: the next week. I hope he's wrong, and where the
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  Speaker 3: man have been known to be wrong.
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  Speaker 2: They certainly have. But feels quite good, Jamie, Thank you
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  Speaker 2: for that.
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