THE BIG PICTURE
Beefing up after the firestorm By MICHAEL BURT
S
ix sheds. 17km of boundary fences. Two harvesters. 80 head of cattle. One tractor. $11,000 per week in fodder. That is just a few of the raw figures from the bushfire impact on David and Carolyn Duff’s two farms at Toorooka, west of Kempsey. The fourth-generation farmers experienced a firestorm on November 8 last year that truly tested their resilience after two years of drought, but tenacity has prevailed and the rebuilding phase is in full swing. Blessings of rainfall in recent months have helped their cause, with healthy pastures replacing the need to buy in fodder and winter cropping preparations underway. “We are moving forward and having green grass is certainly helping, but we have so many balls up in the air in terms of rebuilding everything and basically starting again,” Carolyn says. “We’re dealing with local machinery dealers, fencing contractors, insurance companies, shed rebuilders and rural suppliers all at once. All these local people have been great in supporting us and getting us what we need. “All the sheds and the one house we lost have all been removed through the government’s clean-up program, which was a great help. We’ve bought a new header and field bins to
hopefully harvest a good soybean crop later this year. “Ironically, rainfall has been holding up the fencing and it’s been too wet to plant forage crops. We’ve gone from drought to bushfires to floods and now Coronavirus.” David and Carolyn describe the events of November 8 as “truly terrifying”. The couple were trapped at their Toorooka Station homestead, which they bravely fought to save as a firestorm engulfed the 1010ha beef enterprise. “The noise, the speed of it, the ferocity – everything about it was unbelievable,” David says. “The devastation it caused did nearly break us and we really did not know if we had a future. But we went from hell to paradise in about six weeks after making the decision to rebuild. It seemed a daunting challenge and I was probably not willing to admit that at the time. “Once we were able to stop feeding cattle, both of us were able to focus on rebuilding the business.” Cattle welfare was the first priority and with some assistance from BlazeAid, the Duffs initially set up a containment paddock and ramped up their drought feeding program. Next came the replacement of boundary fences and more paddocks to rotate their 800 head of cattle. Carolyn successfully applied for the Federal Government’s $75,000 bushfire recovery grant and did apply for a bushfire recovery loan. “The recovery grant was helpful, but the recovery loan process has been frustrating and takes far too long,” she says.
“We’ve gone from drought to bushfires to floods and now Coronavirus.” 10
THE FARMER
MAY - JUNE 2020
David and Carolyn Duff lost six sheds, 17km of boundary fences, two harvesters, 80 head of cattle and were feeding out $11,000 worth of fodder each week until rain fell in February.
South Coast paddocks spring back with hope By LUCY KNIGHT
T
he countryside around Cobargo has turned from brown to black to brilliant green over the past six months, giving dairy farmers like Tony Allen some hope as they recover from the January bushfires. The historic Cobargo township was severely hit by the fires which devastated the Bega Valley on the NSW Far South Coast on New Year’s Eve, and the region’s dairy farms didn’t escape the damage. A fourth-generation dairy farmer, Tony owns Galba Holsteins with his wife Robyn and son Rocky, milking 180 cows year-round. He says his family’s home, dairy shed and cattle were spared in the blaze but it tore through every paddock and destroyed all his pastures and fencing. In the days which followed, power was out across the region and Tony and his son milked with a generator. However roads were also cut and the Allens, like so many farmers in the area, had to “dump” milk for almost two weeks before tankers could access them again. The months since that awful period have been consumed with the huge task of tearing down old fences and rebuilding new ones. “When you have a dairy you have to get up and milk the cows every morning, no matter what, and after the fires we got up, milked the cows and started cleaning up,” he explains. “The damage here has been enormous in cost and time but you just have to get in and do what you can.”
