12 floods in four years leave Shoalhaven farmers facing huge clean-up costs

Some farmers in the region are facing hefty damage bills. (Supplied: Graeme Cochrane)

Farmers in the New South Wales Shoalhaven region are facing huge damage bills as they try to recover from the 12th flood in four years.

Graeme Cochrane, from Kangaroo Valley, milks 350 Jersey cows on lush river flats flanked by Barrengarry Creek and the Kangaroo River.

His farm recorded more than 200 millimetres of rain during last week’s downpour and the intense fall higher up the catchment caused flash flooding.

“It was an absolute nightmare, to be honest … there’s not a fence left standing on the farm,” Mr Cochrane said.

“It was just a sight to behold — I’ve never seen anything like it and hope I don’t for a very long time.”

He said he had lost “tens of thousands, if not hundreds of thousands of dollars in fencing”, but that was not all.

“We’ve had a centre pivot irrigator go underwater — not completely lost but will need repairs,” Mr Cochrane said.

“We’re looking at over $100,000 in damage to our laneways, with culverts washed away.

“We’ve got a massive repair bill in front of us.”

Compounding effects

Flooding is not unusual in the Shoalhaven, but this event was different because of the intensity of the storm over an already saturated catchment.

Jaspers Brush farmer Justin Welsh woke to find 80mm in his rain gauge on Saturday morning.

A storm soon after brought another 90mm in the space of an hour, which prompted flash flooding.

“We’ve had some sort of flash flooding that was fairly unusual in places that we haven’t had before,” Mr Welsh said.

“There’s some fencing repairs to do, but they’re sort of relatively superficial, and the real costs will be the loss of the ryegrass that we’ve planted.

“We’re sort of waiting now for the water to get off the ground, to dry out, to get back to seeding.”

12 floods in four years

Shoalhaven Mayor Amanda Findley said flood damage was all too common in the region.

“Shoalhaven has just clicked over the dubious record of having its 13th natural disaster in the last four years, 12 of which has been floods and severe weather events,” she said.

“Our farmers have been suffering because it inundates their silage and their fields.

“So many of our dairy farmers are again waking up to a sodden mess and wondering how they’re going to get through another period of time feeding their cattle, particularly coming off the fact that the last flood they experienced was in November 2023.”

Cr Findley said there had been generous offers of donated fodder that had been referred to Local Land Services (LLS).

“So my advice to any farmer, whether they’re big, small, or in the middle somewhere [is] that they get in touch with the LLS and make sure that they get what’s available to them,” she said.

LLS has urged farmers in need of help to call 1300 795 299 or make a submission to the Primary Industries Natural Disaster Damage Survey.

‘Wonderful’ support

Mr Cochrane said the community had turned out in force to support farmers.

“The outpouring of support from friends, neighbours and even strangers has been overwhelming,” he said.

“People have helped clean up, friends brought round a chocolate cake and meals for us yesterday … it’s been wonderful.

“At this point in time we’ve really needed it — we’re so ever grateful.”

Mr Cochrane said there was one thing he needed more than anything else.

“We need at least 10 weeks of dry weather to get our paddocks back in shape,” he said.

“Reseeding is our top priority right now … we’ve got to get good feed for the cows into late winter.”