Donations for re

A campaign to help meet the cost of re-fencing vast swathes of cyclone-hammered rural New Zealand is a tangible way to support the recovery of critical food-producing land, says one of its key backers.

The Post Your Support fund has been launched by Farmlands, Federated Farmers and Stuff in response to the massive damage to rural fences on farms.

"We want the New Zealand public to know that this is a tangible way they can support farmers and growers, and to understand just how important the impacted regions are as a source of food.

"We all need these fences repaired and farmers back up and running," said Tanya Houghton, chief executive of rural supplies co-op Farmlands.

READ MORE: * Many farmers and growers did not have adequate insurance cover for flood fencing damage * Strainers, stays and tying off: A townie's guide to fences * 'The destruction of farm fencing is overwhelming' - why your help is needed

The focus of the fundraising is on donors "buying" fenceposts for $20 each, which will then go towards paying for a metre of replacement fencing, at a discounted price.

Each $20 "fencepost" was a symbol for a contribution; the money that would be credited to individual farmers from the fund could be spent on netting, fenceposts, wire and any other materials associated with repairing and rebuilding fencing and growing structures, she said.

A fencepost was tangible and something that anyone who travelled around New Zealand associated with the landscape, she said.

"We think it's something really Kiwi, that we can all get in behind," Houghton said.

Federated Farmers said tens of thousands of kilometres of fences were wiped out by Cyclone Gabrielle in mid-February. With fencing typically costing in the range of $25-$30 a metre, the ultimate repair cost could run into many hundreds of millions.

Since the campaign was launched on Friday, $72,000 in public donations had been received. That added to about $650,000 in contributions from various bodies, including $225,000 already raised by Farmlands through its Cyclone Gabrielle Response Fund; $150,000 donated by Federated Farmers, $100,000 from Silver Fern Farms, $30,000 from rural insurer FMG, and $100,000 from the Ministry for Primary Industries.

Grants of a maximum of $5000 would be made on a first come, first served basis to those with cyclone-damaged fencing.

"We’ve received almost 250 applications, so the need is already much higher than the $655,000 of funds we had available on day one," Houghton said.

How many people could be helped and how quickly depended on public response, Houghton said.

It was clear that many farmers did not have adequate insurance to cover flood or storm damage to fencing, with rural insurer FMG saying many farmers traditionally saw damage to fencing as low risk, and did not take out special insurance cover for extreme weather events.

Farmers with insurance to cover damage to fencing was covered u to $20,000, a spokesperson for FMG said.