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Canterbury farmers looking for a government commitment to help cover the cost of earthquake damage to farmland were left disappointed by a meeting with ministers tonight.
Earthquake Recovery Minister Gerry Brownlee and Finance Minister Bill English appeared before a 300-strong crowd at a Federated Farmers meeting in Darfield, west of Christchurch.
Among the issues raised by farmers was that cracks which had appeared in their paddocks were not covered by either the Earthquake Commission (EQC) or private insurers.
English warned farmers that they may not be covered by insurance for some of the damage to their farms.
"I wouldn't want to get ahead of that process because as you can imagine these are going to come down to some pretty tight legal-type arguments.
"The government wants to pick up these problems as they arise to test how genuinely widespread they are."
Farmer Mal Arnold asked the ministers to give the sector some commitment towards helping solve the issue.
"Talking about us keeping the economy going, it's pretty hard when half your fencing and half your paddocks have been destroyed," he said.
"Why don't you guys put your hand up, give us some securities so we can go forward, get stuff done. That's what we need."
The ministers said they would talk about a possible resolution but would not commit to providing any funding towards those affected.
Outside the meeting, Arnold told NZPA he had not been given an answer.
"I want to know where they stand on it," he said.
"It's difficult for them, too, because obviously they can't come out and say 'right, we'll do this' but hopefully they can go back and sort something out."
Arnold said cracks on his farm, near Darfield, were in some cases more than 1m deep and 75cm wide.
"We're pretty isolated so I haven't caught up with a lot of other people, but I dare say there must be others."
Earlier today, Agriculture Minister David Carter announced a rural recovery organisation had been set up to deal with problems arising in the Canterbury farming sector as a result of the earthquake.
Among the areas Carter highlighted were the impact of Saturday's 7.1 magnitude quake on irrigation and the region's underground water system.
"What we need to do now that the power's on is slowly test those wells and see whether the aquifers have moved. We then need to check the damage that occurs to pumps, to wells, and to underground main lines," Carter said.
"That's one of the very reasons we've set up this rural support group, which will co-ordinate everybody as we move to the next stage of (assessment) of the damage that has occurred out there in rural Canterbury."
The advice to farmers was not to start pumps again unless there was an engineer standing beside them who could shut them down again quickly if there was a problem, Carter said.
