The Big Picture

South Coast paddocks spring back with hope

By LUCY KNIGHT

The countryside around Cobargo has turned from brown to black to brilliant green over the past six months, giving dairy farmers like Tony Allen some hope as they recover from the January bushfires.

The historic Cobargo township was severely hit by the fires which devastated the Bega Valley on the NSW Far South Coast on New Year’s Eve, and the region’s dairy farms didn’t escape the damage.

A fourth-generation dairy farmer, Tony owns Galba Holsteins with his wife Robyn and son Rocky, milking 180 cows year-round.

He says his family’s home, dairy shed and cattle were spared in the blaze but it tore through every paddock and destroyed all his pastures and fencing.

In the days which followed, power was out across the region and Tony and his son milked with a generator. However roads were also cut and the Allens, like so many farmers in the area, had to “dump” milk for almost two weeks before tankers could access them again.

The months since that awful period have been consumed with the huge task of tearing down old fences and rebuilding new ones.

Tony Allen owns Galba Holsteins with his Robyn and son Rocky, milking 180 cows year-round.

“When you have a dairy you have to get up and milk the cows every morning, no matter what, and after the fires we got up, milked the cows and started cleaning up,” he explains. “The damage here has been enormous in cost and time but you just have to get in and do what you can.”

Tony says thankfully pastures have since responded well to significant rainfall, with kikuyu grass now 30cm high, making the “moving on” task a little bit easier.

He says many dairy farmers in the region lost so much, including livestock and their homes, and the Allens have been lobbying government representatives and agencies, making them aware of the need for help.

“That fire will go down in history as the most ferocious and fast-spreading fire – it’s completely beyond comprehension and the devastation is hard to come to grips with,” Tony says. “We have outlined schemes to the government which would help farmers rebuild their farms, their dairies, and their herds. A lot of money is needed to bring farms back to the way they were before the fires, and the government will need to do it if they want to keep families in this area.”

Tony Allen has been lobbying government representatives and agencies to make them aware of the help farmers need.

The Allens were among a number of dairy families to receive funds from a $1 million donation from the Perich Group to the NSW Farmers Natural Disaster Relief Fund.

Tony says it was a wonderful donation for which he was extremely grateful, adding the generosity of fellow farmers was “unbelievable”.