Crops lost, roads washed away, houses inundated

Farmers have lost millions of dollars worth of crops in Victoria’s floods and more damage is on the way. See the latest.

Farmers who have lost crops and animals and are now cut off by floodwater and damaged roads say infrastructure repairs are urgently needed.

Farms and properties along the Loddon, Goulburn, Campaspe and Murray rivers have been hit over the past week by some of the largest floods the state has ever experienced, with crops inundated and animals lost to floodwaters.

“All the cropping and farming land here is underwater or has been underwater. We’ve got fences wiped out, stock that have died,” said mixed farmer Prue Milgate.

Farmer Luke Milgate with his kids on his flooded property at Serpentine, on the Loddon River. Picture: Supplied

Ms Milgate said she and other family farms in the region had lost almost their entire property income for the year. “For some farming families that will be millions (of dollars),” she said.

“We don’t need an income payment, we just want to see funding flow to our roads so that we can get our harvest done,” she said.

Ms Milgate called for the federal government to declare floods in the Loddon Shire a national disaster, a move that would unlock additional funding for road repairs.

Ms Milgate, who farms with her husband Luke 7km out of Serpentine on the Loddon River, said 98 per cent of their 1500ha mixed farming operation was inundated over the weekend.

Their wheat, canola, barley and faba bean crops all went underwater, with about one-third of the crops completed submerged and no longer able to be harvested.

Another two-thirds of the crops, which kept their heads out of the water, may still be able to be harvested for lower-quality feed grain, but damaged roads and another rain front threatening to hit the state on Thursday would make that challenging, she said.

“If we get the 100mm at the end of this week, we won’t even be able to get it off the paddock,” Ms Milgate said.

“At the moment, we can’t even get machinery down the road out the front of us because we’re forced out. So if the roads don’t get fixed, we can’t access our paddocks to harvest,” she said.

Widespread totals of 25-100mm are forecast for the state over the coming eight-day period, with the majority expected to fall later in the week.

The crop losses come after farmers shelled out record prices earlier in the season for inputs such as nitrogen fertilisers, which cost more than they ever have this season due to international conflict and reduced gas supplies.

Hundreds of hectares of crops are underwater in the Loddon Shire. Picture: Supplied

Grain grower Leigh Parry, who grows irrigated and dryland crops at Powlett Plains, west of Serpentine, said he had lost 800ha of crops, and another 1000ha was in doubt.

“It’s devastating. It’s a massive financial loss,” he said.

Mr Parry said he had invested roughly $500,000 to bring his crops up to this point, and much of that money would now be unrecoverable.

“The price of fuel and fertiliser doubling from last year, that was the real killer for us,” Mr Parry said.

Prue and Luke Milgate's crops have been inundated in the floods. Picture: Supplied

East of the Loddon, between Serpentine and Dingee, farmer Brenton Osborne said he had lost one-third of 3000ha of winter crops.

“If all had gone to plan, this would had been the best season we had ever experienced,” Mr Osborne said.

“Now, if we can end the season on a level playing field and not in the red, that would be a good result.”

Some of the area that could still be harvestable was strewn with debris, and Mr Osborne said he was concerned he could damage his harvest machinery if one of his machines accidentally picked up a lump of firewood or a star picket by accident.

“You can’t really get spare parts at the moment,” he said.

With floods now moving down the Loddon River towards the Murray, thousands more hectares of crops are expected to be inundated in coming days. Farmers on the Goulburn and Campaspe Rivers were also facing massive crop losses.

Grower Fleur Ferris, who farms at Bunnaloo and Moama on the NSW side of the Murray River, said she was facing “devastating” crop losses as floodwater from the Goulburn and Campaspe Rivers converged on the region.

Ms Ferris said she was bracing for the flood, and as of Monday didn’t yet know how much she would lose. The Moama area was expecting floods similar to or in excess of major flood levels last reached in 1993.

Our crops are going under. Not sure the impact of this has hit me yet. We’re looking at losing our house and our income. #flood#moama#echucapic.twitter.com/jpm40e1vl8

— Fleur Ferris (@FleurFerris) October 16, 2022

One of the biggest challenges the Loddon Shire now faced would be access to basic supplies and transport with major roads washed away, said Ms Milgate at Serpentine.

Roads in the Loddon Shire are closed after record floods. Picture: Supplied

“The Loddon Valley Highway, the Bridgewater-Serpentine road and the Calder Highway are all the major truck routes for anything in northern Victoria down to Melbourne.

“We’ve got a washout on the Loddon Valley Highway that would swallow a car. We’ve got potholes on the Bridgewater-Serpentine road that are half a waist deep and they stretch across the width of the road. The Calder Highway near Wedderburn is also shut.”

A Victorian government spokesman said in a statement 509 roads had been closed since the beginning of the flood emergency, with 150 already reopened.

Work crews had repaired 10,000 potholes and attended more than 20 landslips in just a few days, the spokesman said.

With more rain forecast in the coming days, the government’s immediate focus would be on making key roads usable and safe for emergency services and freight, so vital supplies can reach affected communities as quickly as possible, according to the statement.

Big crop losses across the east coast

Rabobank analyst Dennis Voznesenski said he expected the largest crop losses in Victoria would be in the areas directly in the path of this week’s floods — Echuca, Rochester, Kerang and Shepparton.

Total losses across the state would not be possible to determine until later this month, when further damage from forecast rain could be assessed, he said.

In NSW, potentially just 80 per cent of the area planted to crops would be able to be harvested this season due to widespread waterlogging and flood damage. Figures in Victoria could be similar, but it was still “too early to tell”, he said.

State recovery funding on the way

The Victorian government announced on Monday a $351 million support package for regional Victorian communities, including $165 million committed to emergency road repairs and $150 million for an immediate state-co-ordinated clean up.

Disaster Recovery Funding Arrangements will be available to flood-affected councils, and the Personal Hardship Assistance Program’s Emergency Re-establishment Assistance funds will also be available to some Victorian families. Uninsured property owners can claim up to $42,250.