Dominion Salt's fields in Marlborough. Photo: Supplied/Dominion Salt (Jim Tannock Photography)
For Marlborough, it is a tale of two halves.
While pastoral farmers and growers are struggling with dry conditions, the annual harvest at the region's salt works is off to a bumper start.
Salt has been produced from evaporated sea water at Lake Grassmere/Kāpara-Te-Hau south of Blenheim since World War I - and now around 1400 hectares is used for salt production here.
A drought was declared in Marlborough in mid-March, after months of farmers reporting struggling with working dry farmland and starting to work through winter feed already.
These conditions of very little rainfall and wind have conversely been welcomed by the country's only solar evaporative salt field.
Dominion Salt, which is based in Mount Maunganui, makes salt for use in food, pharmaceuticals and animal health both here and overseas from its Marlborough salt fields.
Chief executive Euan Mcleish said a sunny summer, with little rainfall since the season started in October, had been great for salt-making.
"This season, the summer has treated us very well, being El Niño on the back of three wet La Niñas," Mcleish said.
"For salt-making, of course, you don't want rain - you want a dry summer, plenty of wind and lots of sunshine - and we've had all of that."
Dominion Salt's fields in Marlborough. Photo: Supplied/Dominion Salt (Jim Tannock Photography)
Mcleish said just like other forms of farming, salt farming had its good and bad years.
"And it's widely known in Marlborough region that when the pastoral farmers are doing it tough, the salt works normally does very well, and vice versa.
"So we're on the winning side this year, after a couple of tough years."
He said the average annual yield was around 60,000 tonnes, after washing.
But just two weeks into this year's harvest, it was shaping up to be well above that, after a couple of very low harvests - or even none.
"Well, actually last year it was zero [tonne yield]. That was nothing, which is about the fourth time in our 75-year history that it's happened," Mcleish said.
"The year prior was about half the average yield... [It was] La Niña, so very wet, poor evaporative conditions.
"And then we really got nailed - like a lot in New Zealand did - with Cyclone Gabrielle, which was pretty much in the peak of our normal evaporative season, and we really struggled to recover from that."
Mcleish said the company imported salt from Australia and Indonesia when its own supplies were tight. This was the case last year, when it brought in nearly 60,000 tonnes from Australia.
