A Matamata dairy farmer says there’s no shortage of food in New Zealand, so she urged non-essential workers to stay home so they could continue doing their job amid the coronavirus lockdown.

Tracy Brown of Matamata says farmers are still producing food to feed New Zealanders. Source: 1 NEWS

While the nation is in a four-week lockdown, farmers are counted as an essential service and are able to continue working.

While they’ve been challenged by fluctuating prices and what the weather brings, Tracy Brown told TVNZ1’s Breakfast this morning that New Zealand won’t run out of food.

“We’re just grateful that agriculture and farming has been classed as an essential service and we are able to carry on with our businesses and carry on producing food for people,” she said.

“New Zealand is a food producing nation, that’s what we’re good at. We produce food and I truly believe we’re not going to run out of food.

“We can produce food for 40 million people, and what’s our population? 4.7 or 4.8 million, so we’re not going to run out of food.”

It had been a difficult summer for farmers though, with drought conditions meaning feed is low in many areas throughout the country.

“Our production is down on what it has been other years and it has been really really difficult but farmers are a resilient bunch,” she said of Tiroroa Farms.

There is a community outbreak of Covid-19 in Matamata which Ms Brown said was “quite alarming and concerning for us in the community”.

But she said it was essential to keep Covid-19 under control so that farmers and the people they work with can continue to work.

“What we need is for urban New Zealand to stay home, keep people safe so that rural businesses can continue to operate and we do get the services we need to be able to continue to supply food.”

“I truly believe we won’t run out of food so I urge people to stay home, only go to supermarket when it’s absolutely essential.”