LOCAL dairy farmers are counting the cost of a storm that left properties without electricity for close to 24 hours.
United Dairyfarmers of Victoria is leading a campaign for dairy farmers to receive subsidies to install generators on their properties following the impact of blackouts throughout the region.
Mead dairy farmer, Di Bowles lost electricity on her property at 5pm on December 19, with supply not resuming until 3.30pm the next day.
After initially being advised the fault would be repaired at 9pm on the night of the storm, outages across the State delayed reconnection until the next day.
Mrs Bowles checked with Powercor at 4.30am on December 20 to be told there was no fault, with the report placed at the end of the queue and a potential reconnection time of 9.30am that day.
However, as the day progressed the estimated time increased to being December 21, before the fault was fixed at 3.30pm on the Wednesday.
The fault is expected to cost the Bowles’ at least $5000 in water bills as their herd needed to use town supply water to keep hydrated, with 27 cows treated in the past week for mastitis.
“Thankfully it wasn’t the hottest day in the world, but it was not good enough,” Mrs Bowles said.
“I understand that there are people out there who are on life support and need electricity supply, but dairy farmers need to be ranked higher than people’s air conditioning units.
“Chicken and pig farmers have automated set-ups that kick in when electricity supply is cut, but the situation needs to be assessed.”
Other farmers located in northern Victoria were left without electricity for 24 hours, leaving cows to miss two milkings in a row.
“Power is an essential service. If the government can’t guarantee reliable supply, and farmers have to put in diesel generators, then there should be a subsidy to offset that cost,” UDV president, Adam Jenkins said.
“In this heat lactating cows can drink up to two hundred litres a day. Without power, we can’t pump any water which is real animal welfare concern.”
“Combined with the distress, discomfort and physical toll from missing or delaying a milking, it can take some time for cows to fully recover.”
A Powecor spokeswoman confirmed the company would be happy to meet with the UDV to discuss its concerns.
“We understand the concerns raised by dairy farmers and regret the distress the extended power outage caused to farm owners and livestock following the severe storm,” the spokeswoman said.
“All our customers are a priority and our crews worked hard to return power to all 80,000 impacted homes and businesses, including farmers, schools, hospitals and life support customers, as quickly and safely as possible.”
