The Need for Feed fodder convoy in the mist at Merino. Image – Karla Northcott.

WESTERN Victorian livestock producers will receive more than 1000 bales of hay and silage from the Lions Club’s Need for Feed project after a convoy of trucks arrived in Merino west of Hamilton on the weekend.

Merino Digby Lions Club administration officer and district farmer Shirley Menz said the fodder arrived in Merino on Saturday and be distributed to about 80 farmers across the Glenelg and Southern Grampians Shires.

She said 24 trucks came into town on Saturday night, the Lions club held a dinner for about 130 drivers and recipient farmers, and the drivers were billeted out locally overnight.

“It was a pretty big sight.”

Shirley and Stephen Menz farm at Henty with mainly sheep and a few cattle said getting hay has been difficult and very costly to the region’s farmers.

“The longer it goes on the hay has had to come from further and further afield because there is nothing left in this part of Victoria,” she said.

“The situation started back in August last year when the rain basically stopped here.

“So when it came to the Spring time when we normally produce all our fodder, there was very little fodder made in this area,” she said.

“Everybody made a little bit, but nothing compared to what they normally make, so of course we began on the back foot because we didn’t have the supplies we would normally have.

“And then of course the season has just become a disaster.”

She said the hay has been supplied by Need for Feed and will be distributed free of charge to the farmers via 18 depots. The fodder included some silage from a New South Wales farmer at Kempsey who had been a recipient of Need for Feed fodder after being flooded out twice and burnt out once.

“They had such a great season after the last lot of floods and made all this silage, so he is reciprocated by donating a truckload of silage to Need for Feed – he’s paying back basically.”

Ms Menz said there has been insufficient rain to grow pasture feed on many farms.

“There were severe frosts last week that made the ground even colder and the grass won’t grow.”

Although very grateful for the Need for Feed’s efforts, more fodder will be needed by the district’s farmers, she said.

“This is really only a drop in the ocean of what is required, but it just gives people come hope.

“On Saturday night it was a chance for them to realise they are not in this alone,” she said.

“We’re in this together, we need to talk, we need to be there for each other.”

Convoy’s arrival features on social media

Local farmer and photographer Karla Northcott recorded the convoy’s arrival in Merino on a drone video that has been shared more than 80 times on Facebook.

She said the situation is “awful” for many producers.

“We’re feeding them as much as we can, but they need grass.

“We’ve never seen it like this before, but I was bloody moved by how generous people can be in a time of need.”