The Ministry for Primary Industries will be inspecting flooded farmland in the Whanganui region this week to assess damage and advise farmers who have lost newly-planted crops.
As well as damage caused by flooding of the Whanganui River and its upper tributaries, hundreds of hectares of of farmland were last week left under water along the lower reaches of the Turakina and Whangaehu Rivers.
Regional council incident controller Ged Shirley says they'll be carrying out further assessment of the damage this week and on Wednesday will work with Ministry for Primary Industries staff.
Mr Shirley says food crops sown in the last month has been ruined and it will be some time before it can be resown.
He says hopefully the season is still at a stage where farmers can do that.
Mr Shirley says the council will also be starting work on Monday to repair one of its most important flood monitoring sites on the Whanganui River. The site at Pipiriki was badly damaged by a large slip last week.
