MHD MATERIALS HANDLING
HELPING RURAL COMMUNITIES David Sultana, Director of Marketing, Asia Pacific talks about the recent work Crown has been doing with charity Rural Aid.
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he Bureau of Meteorology has released a statement describing the most recent drought affecting eastern Australia as one of the most severe in 120 years of records. The Bureau issued four Special Climate Statements relating to last year’s conditions, declaring extreme and abnormal heat, as well as a number of broken climate records. The conditions got so bad that the entire state of New South Wales was declared in drought in the latter half of 2018. Farmers are still struggling to recover from the many damaging side-effects of the ongoing drought. “This is still a major issue, though the media coverage isn’t as regular as it has been, the drought is still having a tragic impact on rural communities,” David says. Crown Equipment operate across Australia’s regional areas and has many customers who are affected by the drought conditions, David says. “We wanted to get involved. We wanted to help in any way we could. We want our customers and the rural community that is experiencing this very difficult time to know that we are there through the good and the bad,” he says. Rural Aid is one of the largest rural charities in Australia. Founded by Charles and Tracy Alder in 2015, its focus is to provide support to farmers and rural communities in 14 | MHD SEPTEMBER / OCTOBER 2019
times of natural disaster as well as supporting the sustainability of the agricultural sector. Crown Equipment has been involved with Rural Aid to help out during three of the charity’s larger hay bale drops so far, with the most recent one taking place in Moree, NSW. On 13 August, six hundred bales of hay were dropped in Moree from 17 trucks from South Australia. The hay was distributed to more than 50 farmers. Crown Equipment provided a number of specially equipped forklifts to help offload the bales from the trucks. “Before we got involved it was a case of just getting whatever the local people could get their hands on to move the hay. We wanted to help make it as efficient as possible so we took a number of new forklifts along to the drop, so less people can get the work done faster. The forklifts also required bale spikes to lift the hay so we had them fitted,” David says. This drop was the latest of three that Crown Equipment has provided support for, with the largest one taking place in Tamworth, NSW last year where 2,100 bales were delivered. Rural Aid CEO, Charles Alder says Crown Equipment has been a fantastic support to struggling farmers and to Rural Aid during these unprecedented times. “We need to help our farmers in
any way we can to get feed to their stock. It can also be a challenge finding operators with equipment to unload large hay bales in remote areas. Crown Equipment’s donation of the use of their forklifts and drivers on three of Rural Aid’s large hay drops helped to ensure the operations ran smoothly for all,” Charles says. Additionally, Crown Equipment has donated a walkie stacker to the Rural Aid head office so that the organisation can better manage the logistics of its donations. Crown has also provided a financial donation to the organisation. “We want Rural Aid to know that we are here to help. They can pick up the phone and let us know how we can help anytime,” David says. This was evident with the recent drop off at Moree where Crown were called upon one week before the delivery was going to happen. “We got the call and we jumped on it straight away, organising the transport for our forklift trucks to help with the drop off,” David says. Once again Howie Transport helped with the logistics, another company that sees these bale drops as an important cause. The local farmers are really appreciative of the help that is coming from the metropolitan areas and show incredible gratitude of organisations helping out where we can, David says. ■
