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THE INDEPENDENT VOICE OF MID CANTERBURY
Triumph tough
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FEED RUN Lending a helping hand By Heather Chalmers
heather.c@theguardian.co.nz
An appeal initiated by Hinds dairy farmers Ben and MaryAnne Stock to donate spare bales of feed to Hawkes Bay drought-affected farmers has quickly snowballed, with hundreds of bales being freighted north from next week. Mid Canterbury farmers, transport firms and rural contractors have been quick to show their generosity, providing bales and baleage, as well as logistics
to consolidate the feed for transporting north. While one truck and trailer load of feed went north earlier this week, KiwiRail has now agreed to shift feed north for free. “So that’s a huge breakthrough,” Ben Stock said. “We are fully aware that Mid Canterbury itself doesn’t have a lot of feed floating around, so we are grateful to anyone who can donate something. “Our preference is for baleage
to feed sheep, but quite a bit of straw is also being donated and we are not going to turn that away.” From Monday, KiwiRail will begin transporting up to 10 40foot containers full of hay bales per week from Ashburton as capacity allows. From Wednesday, a wagon load of wrapped silage will be transported from Timaru daily. The Stocks initiated the Mid Canterbury Feed Run, following a similar venture by Wairara-
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pa farmers Sophie and Daniel Hansen. “We decided we could donate feed. We rang around some neighbours and did a Facebook post and the next thing we were up to 400 bales. “It would be great to get close to 1000 bales if we can. Whatever people can spare we will be enormously grateful for. “All going well that feed should be donated, transported and railed at no cost to Hawkes Bay farmers,” Stock said.
To donate, people can sign up on the Mid Canterbury Feed Run Facebook page. As a similar initiative was also under way in South Canterbury, led by Levels farmer Nicky Hyslop, the two groups had teamed up and were sharing resources and information, Stock said.
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