In the next two months south-west Victorian couple Bonnie and Wayne Johnstone will spend $100,000 on feed for their stock, that’s on top of the $160,000 they’ve already spent.
The couple, who milk 700 cows, lost 900 acres in the St Patrick’s Day fires as well as quality hay, silage and fences.
Their story echos the tale of farmers across the region who are struggling financially and mentally to recover from the devastating St Patrick’s Day fires.
While the Garvoc couple weren’t the worst hit, Mr Johnstone said it would take them and others at least two years to recover. Some, he said, may never recover.
Mr Johnstone said “it would be tough” for those without insurance and the payout his family had received, which paid for fodder initially, was “wearing thin”.
It’s costing $2000 – $3000 extra a day to feed the cows dry matter including grain, fetch and oaten hay.
“We’re probably looking at around $60-$80,000 a month to feed my cows,” Mr Johnstone said. “Hopefully we can spend another $100,000 (on feed) and be back on track,” he said.
“A cow needs 20 kilos of dry matter per day and that’s what I’m giving her. The cows have just started calving as well.”
It's another blow after years of low farm gate milk prices and could be the final straw with some farmers opting to leave the industry. That’s if they can sell their properties.
He has resown 900 acres of pasture seed and is waiting to see how it grows with dry weather conditions not helping.
“It’s over two months since the fires and we’ve got a long way to go. We’ve sown 10 tonne of grass seed which is 1000 acres. That’s got to grow and mature enough so it’s in the situation where we can put the cows on those pastures. We’re not on our own.
“It’s not just financial (recovery), there’s other things to consider. I’ve got to get my cows back into good condition, they lost a lot of weight, I’ve got to get the pastures that I've over sowed back into producing as they would in a normal year. They’re not going to do that this year, they’re going to take a while to establish and fill out.”
He said the cows were maintaining their milk production but it was “costing me a bomb to do it”.
“Unless I get the milk now I won’t be able to generate enough income to cover the costs either. I can suck up a few hundred thousand of loss early in the season if I can have a good run later in the year.”
Of his stock, 150 young cows are being agisted in South Australia and he has reduced his numbers with only 300 acres of land left untouched by the fires.
“I just didn’t see a profitable reason to hang onto them. I was just buying feed to keep them alive. A lot of farmers I talk to are in the same predicament. The only solution is to reduce numbers or put extra kilos of dry matter into the cows until the pastures recover.”
He remains optimistic. “We’re just looking forward to the future once we get past the next few weeks. I think the dairy industry is on the improve.”
