By Jed Lanyon
Pakenham Lions Club’s Need for Feed initiative is helping drought affected farmers get back on their feet and now one Yarra Valley farmer is putting the callout to other farmers to help donate their own feed.
The local farmer, who wished to remain anonymous, said they will be making their third semi-trailer donation of fodder to be sent to New South Wales.
The farmer lost everything in the Black Saturday Bushfires and now they look to programs like Need for Feed to help others in dire situations.
“I’m very passionate about helping others who have been hit the same way,” they said.
Need for Feed founder Graham Cockerell told the Mail there would be one Need for Feed semi-trailer making a pick-up from the Yarra Valley in mid-December, but he would be happy to accommodate more trailers if it met a greater demand.
“This weekend just gone we’ve done two hay runs up to the New South Wales fire affected areas and donated fodder from all over Victoria… We’ve been working on the drought up there for nearly two years,” he said.
The Yarra Valley farmer hopes to see others contribute and expects farmers in the region to have had a strong year.
“The hay will be massive this year. The yield will be very good.”
But you don’t have to be a farmer to help out, as the Need for Feed accepts donations to help cover the costs of hauling feed across the country via semi-trailers.
Over $3.5 million dollars-worth of fodder – which equates to around 19,000 large rounds of hay – was donated and delivered to farming families in in need in 2018 alone.
Mr Cockerell founded Need for Feed after seeing the devastation of the 2006 east Gippsland fires to deliver emergency fodder and transport to farmers in drought, fire and flood affected areas.
For more information about Need for Feed, visit http://www.needforfeed.org/.
