Almost a year on from the devastating floods which hit south-east Queensland, third-generation dairy farmer Luke Stock has got production back up and running at his Lockyer Valley property, Glenore Grove.
Typically producing around 600,000 litres of milk per year, the flooding caused a halt to the Stock family's operation, which they have only fully recovered from recently.
"We've been 30 per cent down month-on-month in production, and it's really only probably the last six to eight weeks we've started to get back to where we were prior to the floods," Mr Stock said.
"To get the cows back onto the farm it took us 20 days, but to be honest full production really takes anywhere from four to six months, it just knocks the animals around so much."
Mr Stock was interstate when his family property was hit, and he returned home to a scene of destruction once the floodwaters had receded.
"When it started raining, I was 800 kilometres away in Bellingen doing some industry-related stuff, so I was on the phone to dad trying to get as much of our infrastructure back up on the ridge and out of floodwater," he said.
"We got 600 millimetres of rain in two days, floodwaters inundated three quarters of the farm, and we essentially became an island here.
"All our fences got washed away, we had to rebuild all of our cow laneways and driveway."
No strangers to severe weather events, Mr Stock and his family got straight to work with repairs in an effort to return the farm to normal programming.
"We've seen this all before and we've got a routine, we know what to do, but it's never a nice feeling to see those waters rise," he said.
"Our main priority is our animals and to make sure they're fed, so we try to build resilience and do a lot of risk management from a flooding point of view."
After rebuilding over the past 12 months, the Stocks are focusing on creating greater flood resilience on their property and within their operation.
"If you go back to 2015 and 2016, there was a lot more cultivation, we worked a lot more ground, but in the last four to five years, we've gone to a lot more permanent pasture from a flood point of view, so it'll just be about doing more of that," Mr Stock said.
The cleanup after a natural disaster is both a daunting and costly process for landowners, but the Stock family were fortunate to receive one of the Extraordinary Disaster Assistance Recovery Grants from the Queensland Rural and Industry Development Authority (QRIDA), which provides eligible producers with up to $75,000 to assist in their recovery.
"We received the initial grant of $15,000 and straight off the bat, we used that to purchase hay," Mr Stock said.
"With the subsequent application of $48,000, we've totally rebuilt all of our cow laneways and we've done full repairs to all of our driveway and roads so we can have good access to milk tankers daily."
QRIDA natural disasters and drought manager Sheree Finney said the grant was designed to help producers get back on their feet by stimulating cashflow, thus making the recovery process as smooth as possible.
"You might need to pay deposits on a fence contractor coming out to do work, or that little cash boost to help things start, and we recognise that which is one of the reasons to have this initial application and then a subsequent application," she said.
"The subsequent application is anything on top of that $15,000, up to the total $75,000.
"You make another application, it's a similar process and sometimes easier as we know what the story is, you just show us how you spent that initial money and evidence of payment, such as receipts, to show support of work completed."
Mr Stock said the QRIDA grant made a big difference to their recovery, encouraging other producers to also seek help when needed.
"I would encourage farmers to be on the lookout for whatever assistance is available from QRIDA and if you look at our situation, it's been nothing but positive," he said.
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