Farmers in Golden Bay have had nearly 600mm of rain the in last 48 hours but it appears it is the urban areas in the Nelson region that have been hardest hit.

Golden Bay cockie and Federated Farmers rep Graham Ball told Country99TV that 580 mm of rain has fallen on his farm since Tuesday and he was still assessing the full extent of the damage.

Mr Ball says while some farmers have a lot of silt on their paddocks and will need to be serving up supplementary feed to their stock the area’s main problem was road slips.

“The main road to Collingwood has got a slip on it which is probably a 50 metre slip and has taken the road out.

"So we have issues there with not being able to get milk out of the Aorere and Bainham areas, so that of course is a concern to the farmers.”  

He says the priority is now for farmers to get a temporary bridge in place so the milk can get out within days as opposed to weeks of trying to repair the roads.

Closer to Nelson, most farmers escaped relatively unharmed as the heavy falls have occurred in urban areas.

However, Nelson Federated Farmers president, Gavin O’Donnell, says horticulturalists and a handful of dairy farmers in the low-lying Waimea Plains have been hit by the one-in-twenty year floods.

"“The main things are going to be issues around flood debris across paddocks. Silted pasture and there will be some hay and sillage paddocks that will have been flooded and will be affected by silt and debris.” 

The Metservice is predicting there is still up to 400mm of rain to fall over the next 24 hours.