MORE than 100 farmers from around Delungra gathered for a drought meeting on Tuesday night.

Farmers from Delungra, Bingara, Barraba, Graman, Warialda, Crooble and Myall Creek attended the meeting to discuss the prospect of submitting an application for Exception Circumstances (EC) status.

Delungra farmer Ashley Barnett was at the meeting and said the area was the driest he had ever seen the area.

“I’m 57 and I’ve never seen it this bad,” he said.

Ashley runs adjoining properties Winston and Cobbity, located 10kms north of Delungra, his wife Sue is a school teacher.

“We usually run about 550 cows and we are down to about 300.

Two hundred have gone off to agistment and the weaners have all been sold so we have around 100 cows left on the property,” Ashley said.

The meeting held at the Delungra bowls club was organised by Nationals Senator John Williams.

Bob McGufficke from Industry and Investment attended and gave a summary of seasonal conditions and a representative from Centrelink answered questions.

A survey was handed out for people to fill out and return to Senator Williams’s office.

The survey includes information regarding rainfall figures, property history and income figures.

Once the surveys have all been returned a decision will then be made whether one large area is submitted in an EC application or whether smaller individual pockets are subm-itted in separate applications.

“We were told at the meeting that the more people that contribute information the better chance there is of it being approved,” Ashley said.

While Ashley, Sue and others struggling in the Delungra area work on an application, Bundarra farmers are still waiting for the outcome of their second EC application.

The Bundarra application is still in the hands of NRAC, who are yet to give their recommendations to Agriculture Minister Tony Burke.

© 2010 Inverell Times

<< Back