The rain still has not stopped in Tairāwhiti - despite a slight reprieve it is back in full force along with strong winds, hitting the already sodden region.
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The downpour over the last few days has affected local growers at the busiest time of the year.
Kaiaponi Farms general manager Scott Wilson said plants may over mature and could be useless for picking.
"The biggest impact of this weather event for us is that it just delays harvesting of fruit," he said.
"We're challenged enough as it is in terms of labour supply and every day, I guess at the moment, while we're not out there picking fruit we're getting a day behind.
"There's only one crop a year and this is the big pay day I guess in terms of bringing that through to the market."
Leaderbrand produces vegetables and salad for distribution, mostly domestically. It has its headquarters in Gisborne.
Its chief executive Richard Burke said there had been some effects on the produce.
"It's reasonably big rain, so harvesting's come to a bit of a halt over the last few days and so has planting, and we've seen a certain amount of surface flooding and those sort of things around the place, but nothing too dramatic - just enough to really hold operations off and that."
But where it hit his company most was on the highways.
"Our main road both ways out of Gisborne [has been] shut and it's shut in the same places. The road north is flooded in exactly the same place as it always does. For us, we kind of get frustrated that we had rain like this and the road is closed, because it really affects certainly what our business can achieve."
He called for more investment in roads with less vehicles on them.
"When infrastructure investment is built on number of vehicles, we don't have the number of vehicles. So we've got all of this investment into productive assets and we don't qualify for the major investment in roading infrastructure."
Emergency Mangement Minister and local MP Kiri Allan, was out in a helicopter, mainly dropping off medical supplies and food.
"The real purpose was to really make sure that we had good eyes across the key areas," she said.
Photo: Supplied / NZ government
"Infrastructure areas obviously, but also as well as welfare, making sure that all the systems are connecting, that small communities that are isolated have the basics that they need to get through the next period of time,"
In Tokomaru Bay, she said locals were making the most of the impassable river.
"So last night, when I drove up to Tokomaru Bay, there was a whole crew of folks on their horses," she said.
"They'd come up through the back and they'd been able to drop down. There's certainly a whole range of ways that people are crossing the river at the moment."
Photo: Supplied / NZ government
But she said the bridge might not be back in operation for longer than first anticipated.
"We're hearing perhaps a couple of weeks, but they're working out interim solutions that might enable things like four-wheel-drive access so that there is some connectivity."
Some of the supplies being dropped off to storm-hit communities are needed for those isolating with Covid-19.
Staff Sergeant Tim Brown is working with a Defence Force soldier who's using a Unimog to get food, water and medication to isolated communities.
Unimog being loaded with food parcels from Tini o Porou. Bread and medicine from Civil Defence Emergency Management destined for isolated areas up the east coast. Photo: Supplied / NZDF
He says they were dropping more supplies off today, and could do the same again tomorrow.
Minister of Climate Change James Shaw says communities moving out of high-risk areas due to extreme weather was a last resort and a long-term adaptation plan to climate change will be released later this year to mitigate some of these issues.
MetService is now forecasting rain for at least the next seven days in Tūranganui-a-Kiwa (Gisborne), as residents try to clean up from the extensive damage.