Plea to help our flood affected farmers with donations

A low loader stacked with hay and silage was helping to drive home the message around the urgent need for donations for the nation’s flood affected farmers.

The Lions Club of Victoria Need for Feed Albury volunteer Tony Furze was at the Henty Machinery Field Days with his truck loaded with hay donated by Henty farmers to raise awareness.

HMFD chairman Nigel Scheetz had donated hay to the charity with the fodder going to drought affected farmers, including one load to Muttaburra, Queensland, and he encouraged Lions Club Need for Feed to have a site at the field days.

“We require fodder to take up to the Northern Rivers flood affected areas around Lismore and Casino – the floods were in February but the water just hasn’t drained away and nothing is growing,” Mr Furze said.

“We have had 150 loads delivered into the region since February, but we are down to the last of our stocks and are desperately in need of more, whether it is big squares, round bales or silage.

“There is going to be a lot of silage made this year as it is so wet there may not be much hay but if anyone has got some last year’s hay, we are more than happy to collect it.

“We had a very good day on Tuesday at Henty with some good donations of hay and money to buy fodder.”

Need for Feed was established in 2006 by Lions Club member Graham Cockerell in response to what was at the time the driest period on record.

During the millennial drought over 1300 truckloads of fodder worth $12 million were delivered to farmers free of charge into all the eastern states including Tasmania and South Australia. 

There were also more than 700 truckloads valued at least $6.5 million for those affected by the 2020 bushfires. 

Over the past two years the charity has had trucks on the road each week in between major hay runs.

To donate visit the Need for Feed Australia Facebook page.