FEDERATION Council’s worst fears about damage to crops from back-to-back frosts late last month have been confirmed in an independent agronomist assessment.
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The council met on Monday with farmers, agronomists and industry stakeholders to fully understand the impacts of the August 28-29 frosts when temperatures dropped to minus six degrees in areas where crops were already struggling from below average rainfall.
In a blunt assessment, Elders Albury agronomist Desi Toohey said: “The season has gone from a severely drought affected region to a catastrophic frost affected drought season.
“This has a huge impact on local food production, local producers and a culminating effect on all local businesses involved in our local agriculture production chain for national and international food supply.
“These successive frost events didn’t discriminate against the best farming practices.”
Cropping accounts for almost 80 per cent of farmland in the former Corowa and Urana shire areas with farmers already making the tough call of turning failed crops into hay or silage to get some financial return.
But there is a knock-on effect to these efforts with local contractors being inundated with unrealistic work loads.
“The federal, state and local governments need to dig deep and support the hand that feeds,” Mr Toohey said.
Rainfall in the area this year to date has been just 160mm compared to the long-term average of 350mm.
Federation general manager Adrian Butler said the meeting on Monday was a valuable one.
“It provided council with valuable feedback on where we need to be focusing our support for farmers, industries and businesses,” he said.
“Council has developed an interim list of strategies and actions that council will be pursuing.”
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