Senior water scientist Joseph Thomas said it had not been this bad since 2001; a view echoed by dairy farmer Wayne Langford, who has been farming in Golden Bay for 19 years.
"So there was a big drought in 2001 – that was the last big dry we had, and the farmers I’m talking to are certainly saying it’s really starting to get worse than that."
Photo: Supplied / Tasman District Council Mr Raine said that meant only crops with a root system longer than that were able to get water from the ground.
Some of the ground water in coastal areas was under threat from salt water getting into the aquifers, with the current king tides.
Dennis Bush-King said if it did not work, then water restrictions tougher than the 65 percent cut already in place for some, were on the way.
Mr Raine said it was already beginning to bite.
He said as the water cuts worsened, they needed to consider which crops to save.
The dry weather is not restricted to Tasman – it was starting to cause pain across the top of the South Island.
The Nelson City Council, which has imposed Stage Two water restrictions, leading to a ban on the use of garden sprinklers, aimed to increase its supply of water to Tasman from 800 to 2000 cubic metres of water a day.
*The Civil Defence State of Emergency has been extended by a week in the Tasman region, due to the wildfires which began two weeks ago.

One of the City of Cape Town’s major successes for the year 2018 was surviving the worst drought to ever affect the region without actually running out of water.
The City in collaboration with its residents was able to keep Day Zero at bay through a range of measures that included, water restrictions, pressure management and seeking out alternative sources of water.
While the City has expressed its pride at being able to come out of the drought okay it has turned all its attention to preparing for the likelihood of increasing risk and vulnerability in the coming years in the face of climate change, the growth of alien vegetation, delays in building new surface water schemes, and over-allocation of the integrated water system.
In light of this, the City recently released its Draft Water Strategy for public comment and feedback.
Through the strategy the municipality hopes to secure the City of Cape Town’s future water supply.
In this infographic we look at six ways Cape Town plans to drought proof the City with its proposed new strategy.

With the dry season beginning to affect many parts of the country, efforts are being made to ensure that effective and efficient measures are instituted to avoid severe and drastic drought effects through the implementation of a National Water Policy and National Drought Management Plan.
“The Water Policy, hopefully, when implemented would bring people’s perception to reality that we all would be thinking of water as important and as a scarce resource and so that the policy is ready to ensure that the present and future generations have access to sufficient and safe water”, he said.
It is said that sometimes we don’t adhere to regulations but if we want to manage this thing in terms of our future development, regulations will be important.
We want to ensure that we use water efficiently…”, he added.
Dr. Peters pointed out that the National Drought Management is intended to ensure that during the dry season “we want to ensure the greatest public benefit for domestic water”.
So while irrigation is important during a drought, the most important thing is for people to have water to drink.
So, when they are going to be restrictions, the first priority NAWASA has is to make sure is that people has water, sufficient water and safe water to drink”, he said.. Minister of Agriculture, Yolande Bain-Horsford disclosed that the ministry’s contribution towards the drought situation will be the implementation of a monitoring system to record the impacts on water supplies, soil degradation and agricultural production.
When we speak of valve regulation, it means that there are limited hours within which all of those consumers would be receiving a supply.
Permanent Secretary in the Ministry of Agriculture, Elvis Morain called for a more holistic approach to be taken to minimise the effects of the impending drought.
Deeper meaning, we have to begin to look at alternatives in terms of food.

There’s light at the end of the tunnel for a drought-stricken village and for a community where women have had their hair turned green by the public water supply.
For more than five years the people of Kildorrery, Co Cork, have suffered persistent problems with broken water mains and low water pressure due to an archaic reservoir.
Council officials have now confirmed that they have secured planning permission for a new reservoir to serve the village and its hinterland and expect to start construction on it by the end of this year.
Several kilometres of water mains have also been renewed.
It is hoped that, together with the new reservoir, this will result in a far better supply for the area.
Businesses have had to import milk churns full of water on a regular basis because of breakdowns in the system.
Cllr McCarthy said he is glad to see planning permission has been granted for the reservoir and asked for a timeline on its construction.
It happened to a number of women who were living in the Bweeng area and they were at a loss to how this was occurring, until a local hairdresser came up with the answer.
She discovered that there was a high concentration of iron in the local water supply and this was the root of the problem.
They said a new reservoir is to be built which will serve both the communities, but they didn’t provide a timeframe for construction.

On Oct. 18, Gov.
Gary Herbert declared a state of emergency, upon the advice of the state drought advisory panel, because of extreme drought conditions throughout the state of Utah.
On Jan. 16, 90 days later, the Department of Natural Resources Division of Water Rights, led by Executive Director Kent Jones, approved the application of the Emigration Improvement District to drill five new 20-inch diameter wells for ground water extraction.
Think about the reality of that, this almost nine-foot diameter hole in the ground spewing water.
The irony is this water is not needed for the EID’s current customers.
Evidently, Jones did not receive the governor’s memo that we are in an unprecedented and serious long-term drought.
The logical conclusion is that the EID sees dollar signs for future, unwise and disastrous canyon development.
This decision borders on complete irresponsibility, as it would put current residents, wildlife, vegetation, forests, stream, riparian lands and historically significant landmarks at high danger.
The governor has the authority to overturn this potential disastrous decision.
If this unwise groundwater mining is allowed to become a reality, the responsible parties may have a hard time washing the blood from their hands.

Get short URL China’s Ministry of Agriculture has announced plans to create 53.3 million hectares of connected farmland to ensure the country’s food security.
More than five million hectares of farmland will be developed this year.
By the end of 2018, China had developed 42.6 million hectares of such land.
The construction of more high-output fields, coupled with higher agricultural mechanization levels and improved varieties of crops, will help ensure China has an advantageous position in the global grain market, Zhang Xiaoshan, an academician at the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences told Xinhua News.
More than 40 percent of China’s arable land is suffering from degradation, according to the ministry’s statistics.
Currently, two-thirds of China’s arable land consists of medium- and low-yield fields.
Since 2013 the country has been creating 55 billion tons of artificial rain a year.
In an attempt to induce extra rainfall over the Tibetan Plateau it was embarking on the largest artificial rain experiment in history.
The plan, which is an extension of a project called Tianhe or ‘Sky River’ developed by researchers in 2016 at China’s Tsinghua University, is hoped to force extra rain over some 1.6 million square kilometers, an area roughly three times the size of Spain.
For more stories on economy & finance visit RT’s business section

ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. — Drought conditions in much of the southwestern United States have improved because of surges of moisture over the last few months.
But national forecasters and climate experts warned Thursday that it hasn’t been enough to alleviate concerns about long-term water supplies around the region.
Officials with the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s Climate Prediction Center and others provided a briefing on the current conditions in Arizona, Colorado, New Mexico and Utah as parts of California and the Pacific Northwest were blasted by another round of snow and rain.
The situation further inland has been less extreme, but the extra precipitation in southwestern Arizona has spurred some concerns that the upcoming harvest season could be interrupted.
Overall, maps depicting drought and precipitation over the last four months indicate a turn-around for a region that has been grappling with dry conditions for the better part of four years, Arizona state climatologist Nancy Selover said.
"Snowpack is not a guarantee of what your available water supplies will be," said Becky Bolinger with the Colorado Climate Center.
Many reservoirs in the four states are starting off the year low.
Federal data show the Salt River system in Arizona is at about 50 percent capacity, while the largest reservoir in New Mexico has dipped into the single digits.
Water restrictions still remain in place in northwestern New Mexico’s San Juan County.
Dust from White Sands National Monument in the south is being carried by the wind to Texas, more than 200 miles away.

This idea was even written into a “legislative intent” section of the law: “Because the timing for the issuance of grants from federal agencies is uncertain, the legislature may consider other appropriations to be made available to the irrigation districts for these construction and rehabilitation projects after reasonable attempts are made to secure the funding and that federal monies were not provided timely to carry out the purposes of the fund.” I say so because Rep. David Cook, a Globe Republican, has introduced a bill that would give an additional $20 million appropriation to Pinal County irrigation and water conservation districts.
Of course, legislators knew all of this before the drought plan was signed into law Jan. 31.
Indeed it wasn’t.
This is nonsense, of course.
Kelly won’t raise as much every day as he did the first, and he may not even win the Democratic nomination and get to the general election.
But the impressive haul will serve as a warning to all comers that Kelly is likely to be a massively successful fundraiser, combining his wife Gabrielle Giffords’ longstanding network with his own, as well as the new one they’ve developed as founders of the Giffords Law Center to Prevent Gun Violence.
Critics of Douglas Mayor Roberto Uribe have begun trying to recall him from office.
Douglas resident Tanya Duarte told me she started the effort because Uribe has not been following the city charter in his management of City Council meetings and because of favoritism by him in the way he manages the city.
Vogt took over as director of the Department of Gaming this week after a couple of short-lived gigs in state government.
He was executive director of the Arizona Corporation Commission for a brief period last year, until questions were raised about his wife’s job in a public-affairs firm that did work for Arizona Public Service.

EAST GIPPSLAND’S drought-ravaged farmers have accused the Andrews Government of ignoring the worst drought in living memory, which has turned their land into a barren moonscape.
Mr Harrison said state government support, put on the table in September last year, just wasn’t enough.
The VFF has repeatedly asked Ms Symes to raise the $5000 on-farm grant, deliver municipal rate subsidies and rebates on carting stock water.
But to date Ms Symes has failed to respond, simply stating: “When it comes to further supporting drought-affected farmers, nothing is off the table”.
Meanwhile Giffard farmer Dan Boland described his farm as a “moonscape”, with dust storms blowing out paddocks and piling sand up against fencelines.
While Mr Boland has access to bore water for his sheep, others aren’t so lucky, having to cart stock water.
Giffard farmer Helen Milne is carting water from two to three times a day for her 1400 sheep.
“I was thinking of getting off-farm work, but someone has to be here all the time (to water stock),” Ms Milne said.
“I never thought it could get this bad here.
We’ve spent $100,000 on feed over the past two years.”

Rain last weekend started off what is likely to be three straight weekends of wet weather.
Despite the rainfall and increased snowpack, 4.7 million residents remain in drought, which is 13 percent of the state’s population — 11 percent of California as a whole.
Since 2000, California has experienced the longest duration of drought, which as of Tuesday has lasted 373 weeks.
Nine percent of the state remains in a moderate drought and 2 percent is experiencing severe drought conditions, according to Borgioli.
Periods of showers will occur through Saturday with some isolated or briefly scattered showers on Sunday.
Meteorologists expect up to a half-inch of rain from now until Saturday.
(Photo11: Joshua Yeager) Five-day forecast Friday: Cloudy with a good chance of showers.
Saturday: Cloudy with a good chance of showers.
High temperatures around 50, lows low to mid 30’s.
Monday: High temperatures near 50, lows around 30 to low 30’s.