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Oamaru-based agritech company Te Pari has set up a Givealittle page to support cyclone-affected East Coast farmers.
Money raised would go directly to the Rural Support Trust for distribution to rural communities impacted by Cyclone Gabrielle.
The fundraising effort is being co-ordinated by Te Pari marketing manager Corban Blampied who travelled to the region last week to speak to farmers and discovered the devastation was much worse than he expected.
"The clean-up will be nearly insurmountable and local farmers will be hurting for a very long time. We’re asking farmers and people in other rural communities from around the world to band together and offer these guys some financial support to help get the sector moving again."
Many Hawke’s Bay farmers shared similar stories of devastation and he described the situation as "out of this world".
"The cyclone has affected produce, livestock and the New Zealand agricultural industry as a whole. While the community is resilient, they do need support, especially during this rebuilding process," Mr Blampied said.
East Coast Rural Support Trust chairman Clint Worthington said 100% of donations would go to impacted communities. "These donations won’t just go towards the next month or two, but will be helping farmers set up for the long term as well.
"The process of recovery from an adverse event like this, is in three stages — response and ensuring safety during the first few weeks; recovery, which can take three to four months, and then rebuilding. There is massive damage, and it will take years to recover from, so we need to have that long-term focus," Mr Worthington said.
The insurance industry is expecting the upper North Island floods to cost it more than $1 billion.
Insurance Council head Tim Grafton said insurers had already paid out about $111 million and expected the bill to keep rising.
So far, about 47,300 claims have been lodged for the floods over Auckland Anniversary weekend, covering houses, contents, cars and businesses.
Those claims are worth more than $990 million.
On top of that, about 30,000 claims have been lodged so far for damage from Cyclone Gabrielle, Mr Grafton said.
The number of claims from the two weather events were about twice the number lodged after the 2016 Kaikoura earthquake, he said.
Following Auckland’s January floods, Insurance Council consumer affairs manager Sarah Knox told RNZ it would be years before all claims were settled for flood damaged homes, cars and contents.
"A standard event for insurers, where it is a normal sized flood event, they will get through 90% of those claims within a year. But this event is of an unprecedented scale so it will take a long time," she said.
"People need to make sure that they are now looking at their temporary accommodation with their insurers and setting themselves up so that they are there for the long haul with their insurers."
Processing all the insurance claims will take years, Ms Knox said.
"It’s really difficult to be able to say how long is this going to take but it’s not going to be days and weeks, we’re talking months and years. This is an unprecedented event in terms of New Zealand’s history for a flood event."
Meanwhile, insurance premiums were tipped to rise as a result of the flooding events.
Chief executive of the Insurance Brokers Association Mel Gorham told RNZ insurance rates could be in for a rethink as the extent of the damage from extensive flooding was revealed.
"Even before this event, insurers have been looking with greater scrutiny at the likes of flood risk, so absolutely the impact, depending on how significant it is from this event, could in turn create difficulties with insurance rising or becoming less available."
-Staff reporter, additional reporting by RNZ
