Need for Feed is a Lions Club of Australia Project that has been helping farmers across the country since 2006. No matter how tough the times or how difficult it is to find feed and fodder, Need for Feed always comes to help.
Graham Cockerell lost his father to farm related suicide many years ago. Fast forward to the early 2000s and it was reported three farmers per week around Australia were taking their own lives and many others were walking off the land, unable to cope with circumstances beyond their control.
“My father wasn’t a bad farmer, in fact quite the opposite; he found himself in circumstances beyond his control where he could see no other way out,” Graham said.
So, Need for Feed was born. A project that sources feed and fodder.
“Our whole model works on shifting hay from farmers who can spare it to farmers who need it for whatever reason, fire, flood or drought.
“We’re the only big farm charity that’s totally managed by volunteers, no admin fees whatsoever apart form buying a couple of reams of paper and paying some phone bills,” Graham laughed.
At the moment Need for Feed is dealing with two extremes: flooding on the mid north coast and drought crippling Victoria and parts of southern NSW.
Drought-stricken south-west Victoria has suffered 15 months of below-average rainfall and despite some rain in June the cold weather means fodder isn’t likely to grow any time soon.
For some parts of Victoria, they’ve had the lowest rainfall on record since 1900 and climatologists say the rainfall outlook for the next three months looks below average.
“At the moment hay donations just don’t exist down south. Whatever there is, it’s either rubbish or beyond our reach as a charity price wise.
“We need to source good quality feed to take to the mid north coast as the majority of the farmers are dairy and for dairy cattle you need reasonable quality fodder so they can keep milking,” said Graham.
Anyone can jump on board and help Need for Feed, whether its sourcing hay or putting forward donations. Luke Drayton from McCully’s Gap was one of those locals who saw the need for his fellow farmers up north and felt like this was his opportunity to help give back to the charity.
“When all the floods happened around Taree and the Mid North Coast, I thought I would try and organise some hay to send up there.
“It’s just people helping people. When we went through our drought, we had feed coming down from the south of us and further up the coast. They’re in the same boat that we were in 2018 and they scratched our back so it’s our turn to scratch theirs.”
The idea snowballed from helping some farmers in the flood affected mid north coast to sending feed down to drought-stricken farmers in Victoria.
Hay has been sourced from farms at Singleton, Scone and Parkville.
“The Hunter Valley is looking healthy at the moment. To have some more hay donated from here would be a huge load off our shoulders,” Graham said.
“The truckies are all volunteers and they just get their fuel and some of their running costs back. So any donations and assistance we can muster we would be incredibly grateful.”
| For more information head to: https://www.needforfeed.org/ To donate fodder to deliver to drought and flood affected farmers: https://www.needforfeed.org/fodder-donations.html To make a financial donation: https://www.needforfeed.org/apply-to-fundraise.html |
