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A free farmers lunch in Tuturau this month let the rural community take recent adversity in its stride.
Over 50 people come through the doors of the Tuturau Community Hall, east of Brydone, for lunch two weeks ago, organised by its venues committee.
Committee president Sarah Kennedy said the hall, in Shanks Rd, gave farmers a place to decompress together during a soggy spring.
“I think farmers can get very isolated and insular . . . they kind of go to ground and think the answer is just to work harder and it’ll all come right,” Mrs Kennedy said.
“The weather is outside of everybody’s control and I think it’s valuable for farmers to come along and they can discuss it together.”
The committee prepared soup, bread rolls, other hot food and some sweet treats.
Free coffee was also available via the Mad Cow Coffee cart.
The committee first held the event in February.
Mrs Kennedy said she was not expecting as many attendees as they got.
“We put out a couple of trestle tables . . . and people started turning up and we had to put out another table, and then we had to put out another three more,” she said.
The Rural Support Trust had held similar events which offered meals to farmers in Gorge Rd, Wyndham and Mabel Bush, all about a 30-minute drive from Tuturau, at the start of September.
Mrs Kennedy said this meant the committee had low expectations.
“We found out that the week before there was another . . . similar community event and so we thought the farmers won’t bother coming to ours, but they did, it was great,” she said.
Tuturau was made up of dairy, sheep and beef farmers, Mrs Kennedy said.
This year, Southland experienced one of the wettest winters on record, with Gore recording 215% of its normal monthly rainfall recently.