Flood-affected farmers face long waits to replace machinery

Farmers who have lost machines in floodwater face replacement wait times of more than a year, and uncertainty about sowing.

Farmers are facing “massive” machinery losses and long waits for replacements and spare parts after record floods swept through NSW and southeast Queensland this month.

Richmond Valley farmer Paul Fleming, who grows soybeans, corn and rice and is also a qualified mechanic, says 1.2m of water inundated his machinery shed at the peak of the floods.

“Our planters and spare parts in our shed all went underwater,” he said.

Mr Fleming was able to quickly drain and re-oil his machinery and get most of it going again, but he said others in his region hadn’t been so lucky.

“Some people were locked out and couldn’t get back to their machinery for over a week or two. The mud and the water is so corrosive that it just rusts everything really quickly,” he said.

“The infrastructure losses have been so great because people had their safe high ground where they put everything … they thought was safe, and then they come back and it’s all underwater,” he said.

A tractor rests on a small paddock surrounded by floodwater at Coraki, in northern NSW, on March 7, 2022. Picture: Dan Peled/Getty Images

Wait times for machinery and spare parts had already blown out to more than 12 months for some items, and growers who had lost equipment were going to have real difficulty replacing it, he said.

“I ordered a new tractor myself last August, and I’m still waiting for it. It had to come from overseas,” he said.

“I know other people that ordered tractors after me and they had to order 12 months in advance. And that was before all this (flooding).”

The big concern for many flood-affected farmers was whether they would have machinery in working order to plant their next crop, Mr Fleming said.

“Even if we do get some insurance, or some sort of subsidy grant, it’s alright to have the money but you’ve got to be able to purchase what you’ve lost. And that’s going to be the difficult thing going forward.”

A submerged shed on the bank of the overflowing Clarence River at Grafton, on March 1, 2022. Picture: Saeed Khan/AFP

McGregor Gourlay senior agronomist Steve Leeson, who worked with dozens of growers across the flood-affected Clarence, Richmond and Tweed valleys, said sugar cane growers had been “hurt severely” by the floods.

“Just going from Woodburn towards Pimlico, near Ballina, I have 58 sugar cane clients in that area, and I believe there’s only six that (the flood) didn’t go through their houses. And I think there’s only about four that they didn’t lose their machinery,” Mr Leeson said.

“The flood was much higher than anybody forecast, and a lot of people got caught out.

“The problem with new machinery is that it’s all electronics, so when it goes under and gets wet, it’s finished.

“We’re faced with a lot of farmers losing all their tractors, and there’s no tractors out there to buy.”