A CONVOY of trucks loaded with hay arrived in Wauchope on Saturday evening (June 12) delivering another shipment of hope to flood recovering farmers across Port Macquarie-Hastings.
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It was a sight to see as the trucks rolled through High Street to the Wauchope Showground where they were met by Show Society and Wauchope Lions volunteers ready to trade the hay bales for a hot meal.
Since 2006, the Lions Club project Need for Feed has been providing relief for farmers across the state who have now been impacted by years of drought, ravaged by bushfires and decimated by floods.
At that time, three farmers a week in Australia were taking their own lives while many others were walking off the land leaving generations of farming history behind because the challenges they faced were beyond their control.
Lions member and founder of the Need for Feed project, Graham Cockerell, was just one family member who lost a farming father to suicide.
When he donated a truck load of hay to bushfire affected farmers and saw the impact the gesture had, the wheels kept on turning.
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The Need for Feed project has been ongoing and has made a significant difference to families on the Mid North Coast in the last two years of bushfires and floods.
Their response to the latest drought has seen well over 1300 truckloads of fodder worth around $12 million dollars delivered to farmers free of charge, with more than 700 truckloads with a value of at least $6.5 million for those affected by last summer's horrific fires.
The flood response has already seen 90 truckloads of hay delivered.