Hundreds of southwest Victorian farmers apply for hay bale relief

More than 3,000 bales of hay are being loaded onto trucks ahead of being delivered to drought affected farmers across southwest Victoria.

Charity groups Aussie Hay Runners and Need for Feed Australia will be transporting fodder to farms at locations including Port Fairy, Warrnambool, Terang and Camperdown.

Need for Feed told the Brolga it had already received hundreds of applications for assistance.

Aussie Hay Runners will be the first delivery to arrive. Thirty-six trucks are currently being loaded by volunteers in Collarenebri, NSW, with bales of “premium cereal hay”.

Another 10 trucks in Orbost are also being loaded, and the hay runs are expected to be completed in coming weeks. The bales have already been allocated to farmers. 

Under current drought conditions, premium cereal hay “can be extremely expensive and as rare as hen’s teeth”, Aussie Hay Runners said.

Need for Feed Australia’s hay run is set to arrive at the Camperdown saleyards on July 12.

The hay is either purchased with funds raised by the public, or donated by farmers with extra fodder. At the moment, Need for Feed said, spare fodder was thin on the ground and that meant it had to buy all the hay.

Founder Graham Cockerell told the Brolga he hoped to run at least 30 trucks to southwest Victoria, with about 40 bales on each truck.

“This time we’re parking at the Camperdown saleyards, then we’re going over to the showgrounds for a meal, we're inviting some of our recipient farmers to have a meal with us and relax for a bit,” he said.

“We’ll definitely be running some B-doubles and if we can get the permits, we will be running some road trains.”

High demand, limited supply

Due to the limited number of bales available for distribution, Need for Feed has narrowed its hay run down to the three local government areas most impacted by drought: Moyne, Corangamite and Colac Otway shires.

“We plan our deliveries for drought through what they call rainfall decile maps, and that shows these three shires [have had], for the last two years, the lowest rainfall on record that is limited to that area,” he said.

“We fully understand that almost all of Victoria is dry, but funding-wise we can't stretch it past there. We opened [applications] I think 10 days ago, and we’ve received 200 requests for assistance already, and most of which will be eligible.”

Cockerell said the hay would be distributed through an allocation process based on “stock numbers”.

“Sheep are treated differently to cattle, sheep are divided by 10 to roughly equal cattle numbers, going by the [Dry Sheep Equivalent] formula, to keep it fair,” he said.

Donations needed

The charity is always seeking new supporters. Cockerell said that if 40 trucks were sent to the region, they’d be carrying about $250,000 worth of hay.

“The shortest distance anything will be coming from is about 500 or 600 kilometres; some of it is coming from closer to 1,500 kilometres - that’s how far you have to travel to buy hay at a reasonable price.”

Over nearly 20 years Cockerell has grown Need for Feed into one of the four largest Australian farming charities.

“We are the only ones fully administered by volunteers, so it’s something I’m proud of and very protective of. That's what makes us unique and I think it makes it special, because people can donate a dollar and know that a dollar is going to go where it’s supposed to be going,” he said.

Donations can be made at needforfeed.org/donate.html

Header image credit: Lions Club Australia