Drought relief is flowing – slowly – out to farmers, but many are waiting up to two months to collect fodder freight subsidies.
David McKay, “Royden”, Evans Plains applied in August for relief after bringing in three B-Double loads of fodder, oaten hay and clover - from Victoria and South Australia, as his farm and Angus cattle herd battled the drought.
Mr McKay, who is also a NSW Farmers branch president, said actually applying for the subsidy online was easy – much easier than in previous droughts. But he was astonished at how long it took for a return notice on when he would be paid. Someone from the Rural Assistance Authority rang him up last week to say he would be “paid in 10 days”.
The subsidy provides up to 50 per cent of freight costs on hay deliveries in the drought. But farmers have to make sure they provide a cents per kilometre breakdown for freightage and cannot just submit a delivered price claim, which has caught many out who cannot get a freight breakdown price.
NSW Farmers’ has written to the Federal and NSW governments expressing concerns about the delays. It also called for more rural counsellors in the area.
Mr McKay said it appeared the fodder subsidy system was “understaffed” and they must be working through a large backlog of claims. Farmers can claim up to 50 per cent of freight costs for bringing in drought-relief hay.
“I actually found it easier to claim, you just need a breakdown of the freight cost, a copy of your LLS rates, council rates and an invoice. You can scan that all online. It was a lot easier than the old days when you had to fill out all these forms and get a JP to sign it.”
It was a lot easier than the old days when you had to fill out all these forms and get a JP to sign it.
- David McKay, farmer Evans Plains
He said the subsidy was much appreciated and a big help in the drought. The season at Bathurst had turned and he’d been able to grow some oats for his stock and fatten up calves.
He could lock up his oats for awhile and just put the cattle into pasture. He had enough hay now to get him through to the end of summer. He was also looking at planting corn at “Royden” and at another property at Cowra.
NSW freight subsidy advisor Derek Schoen said some farmers had been caught out by the need to break down freight charges. “Often they are only getting it as a price delivered but they need to break that down,” Mr Schoen said.
He didn’t know of any freight subsidy rorting so far – only some farmers receiving inferior hay.
There had been some inferior hay coming in from Queensland, including loads of rhodes grass. “Many are trying to get anything they can, but unfortunately they are finding it is often inferior hay,” he said. “Some of it almost inedible for stock.”
NSW Primary Industries Minister Niall Blair said the government was doing more to speed up claims by opening up more offices to help farmers. Numerous outlets of Local Land Services, Services NSW and Ag research stations were now available to help farmers with claims.
He said many farmers were taking up drought relief money. Almost $270m had already been claimed out of the $500m Farm Infrastructure Fund. That had helped more than 1800 farmers. “All the relief money is meeting the modelling as far as take-up is concerned as we had planned before,” he said. “Farmers are taking it up as we imagined.” But he said he hoped things were not that dire that they needed to access federal family assistance. “Actually I really don’t want farmers taking up the Federal family assistance money, as we don’t want things to get that bad that they need to do that.”