Central Otago is the driest, the coldest, as well as one of the hottest areas in New Zealand. Within Central Otago an enormous diversity of land use occurs. This ranges from intensive horticulture to extensive high country pastoral farming. Pastoral farming is perhaps best known for wool production, in particular merino wool. History tells us that sheep farming was profitable for many years and in 1871 Otago had 3.7 m sheep or about 4% of the national. Things were done on a grand scale in those early days. As an example, the woolshed on the Teviot run held 8,000 sheep and 40 shearing stands. History will also tell us that the Land Development Encouragement Loan Scheme (LDEL) and the Livestock Incentive Scheme (LIS) had an enormous impact on Central Otago. In Otago 195,000 ha of tussock country was oversown and topdressed and this accounted for 27% of the national total spent on LDEL. History will also tell us that 1985-86 was catastrophic financially for most pastoral farmers and the outlook for 1986-87 shows little improvement.
