• Wairarapa farmers and communities cut off after catastrophic flooding

• Wool season closes at historic highs

• HortNZ board directors re-elected uncontested

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Wairarapa farmers and communities cut off after catastrophic flooding

Sheep and beef farmers in coastal Wairarapa are among those hardest hit after catastrophic flooding washed out the Tūranganui Bridge on Friday, cutting off around four-hundred-and-sixty homes across Ngāwi, Lake Ferry, Whāngaimoana and Cape Palliser.

Floodwaters broke through a riverbank onto farmland along the Tūranganui River, with farmers using quad bikes across neighbouring properties in difficult conditions to reach their stock. A local general store has been getting supplies through via quad bike and utes across private farmland — a trip that takes twenty minutes instead of the usual five.

The community of Ngāwi is completely isolated with around a hundred people stuck. Aid including urgently needed infant formula is being helicoptered in, with council crews having worked seventy-two hours straight since Friday.

South Wairarapa deputy mayor Rob Taylor says it could be nearly two weeks before full access is restored. The region hasn't seen flooding damage of this scale since the 1970s, with three-hundred millimetres falling overnight north of Ngāwi.

Nearly a thousand properties across the North Island remain without power.

Wool season closes at historic highs

New Zealand's wool season has closed on a remarkable note, with the final auction of the year recording another round of price gains across all wool types and styles — capping what auction manager Dave Burridge describes as an exceptional season.

The national strong wool indicator rose twenty cents, with crossbred fleece in good style reaching seven-dollars-seventy per kilogram clean, while crossbred second shear lifted five percent to seven-dollars-thirty-five. Crossbred lambs wool continued its strong run, with thirty-two micron returning seven-sixty per kilogram clean.

Mid-micron wools also performed strongly, with halfbred fleece at twenty-eight micron jumping seven percent to eleven dollars per kilogram clean, and halfbred hog holding at twenty-ten.

The new season gets underway with high-quality pre-lamb shorn clips expected at the first auction back on July eighth.

HortNZ board directors re-elected uncontested

Horticulture New Zealand has re-elected grower directors Alistair Petrie and Doug Brown to its board, both returning uncontested for a further three-year term beginning after the annual general meeting on July twenty-eighth.

HortNZ chair Bernadine Guilleux says both directors bring valuable grower perspective and governance experience built over three years on the board.

The re-elections come as the horticulture sector continues to perform strongly, with export revenue forecast to reach nine-point-five billion dollars in the year to June — up seven percent — and grow further to more than nine-point-seven billion the following year.

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