ANZ extends farm drought assistance package

Media Release

For Release: 6 March 2013

ANZ extends farm drought assistance package

ANZ Bank today extended its farm drought assistance package to customers in North Island regions declared in drought by the Government.

The Minister for Primary Industries, Hon Nathan Guy, announced this morning that the Auckland Council area south of the Harbour Bridge, the Waikato, Bay of Plenty and Hawke’s Bay Regional Council areas, including Coromandel and Taupo, were in drought.

Graham Turley, ANZ Bank’s Managing Director Commercial & Agri, said ANZ’s assistance package will be available to farmers in those regions, effective immediately.

Launched last week for farmers in Northland, the package is designed to help farmers meet short-term cash requirements and re-establish their farms to full performance when conditions improve.

“As New Zealand’s largest rural lender, we’ve been alongside our farm customers during good weather and bad for over a century,” Mr Turley said.

“As with any serious weather event that impacts on primary production, the effects of the drought won’t just be felt locally, but right through the economy.

“At the farm gate, the priority is to ensure that individual farms and the entire rural support network survives the impacts, and production is restored when the drought ends.”

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