Michelle Viola and Luke Dunford should be applauded for sharing their story.
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Too often the plight of farmers goes unnoticed, either through pride or the ever-demanding farming cycle.
It’s not easy to announce to the region that you’re doing it tough, but suffering in the shadows without support doesn’t get results.
That’s why Ms Viola and Mr Dunford have come forward.
They want the community to understand the challenges they face and to back them.
They want the government to understand what it’s like to try to pick up the pieces after two floods in eight months, with little cash flow, and they want a fair go for all producers, big and small.
They don’t want a hand out. They want a hand up.
The opportunity to access a grant of up to $15,000 after the April super storm, through the category C disaster funding, would have made a massive impact.
Ms Viola would have been able to pay for more repairs after she lost almost everything needed to run a farm.
Mr Dunford would have been able to use it to buy hay for his cattle, replace his fences and fix infrastructure damaged in the storm.
The road to recovery still would be long, but it could have been made a lot easier.
Ms Viola’s latest calculations show it will take her and her husband seven years to get back to where they were before the April storm.
And that’s not factoring another flood into the equation.
In the Hunter Region, where small-scale farming dominates agriculture, a rethink of the disaster funding criteria is a must if the government is serious about supporting producers.