Long term recovery after a disaster and the need of financial assistance to support farm businesses recover
Extreme flood and weather events have been impacting dairy farms in Queensland and New South Wales since the break of the drought in 2020. Starting with flood events of Tropical Cyclone Seth what followed was a relentless number of floods and cyclones causing devastation from Atherton Tablelands in the North all the way through to NSW’s South Coast.
These events have set back businesses, with herds being wiped out and affected by ongoing cases of mastitis and footrot or lameness; floodwaters eroding country, flooding the milking parlour and destroying infrastructure; and disrupting seasonal planting and harvesting of pastures and/or crops.
Flood events have become more prevalent and extreme, affecting the immediate recovery of farms and business reinstatement. Farmers have been looking towards improving their resilience towards extreme environmental conditions and focusing on capital infrastructure that can house their herds or provide temporary shelter from the wet conditions. Free stall, compost or loafing barns and feed pads are some examples of dairy systems we will see more of in the future. Other investments into technology such has cow collars which monitor individual animal health or somatic cell count sensors to aid in early detection of mastitis and allow for early intervention have been successfully adopted. However, large capital and even smaller investments that improves the businesses’ ability to manage poor weather conditions only becomes attainable when cash flow isn’t being severely affected by countless natural disasters.
Financial assistance in the form of grants, subsidies and loans made available by the federal and respective state governments have been instrumental in assisting the recovery for dairy farm businesses.
Financial assistance from TC Alfred has been made available in Queensland, financial assistance from TC Alfred and NSW Mid-North Coast Floods are available to NSW farmers. Grant funding will be essential for these farms to recover.
Last year, eastAUSmilk’s team have collectively assisted 29 farm businesses in Qld to access disaster recovery funding and emergency freight subsidies and 11 in NSW. We are continuing to assist dairy farmers across New South Wales and Queensland.
Industry differences and understanding what successful recovery for individual agricultural industries should be considered when delivering these programs and during the development of the guidelines. This will ensure farm businesses are getting the right assistance to continue and resume as close to normal production prior to the disaster but also inform future programs to build and improve farm resilience to these catastrophic weather events.
Jade Chan, eastAUSmilk Project Manager