23/01/2020
Are you looking for a way to help local food producers and farmers who have been affected by fire or by drought? Southern Harvest is coordinating volunteers to help out. Email: [email protected].
SOUTHERN HARVEST ASSOCIATION - FIRE AND DROUGHT RELIEF
Southern Harvest Assoication (SHA) is putting out a call for people who may be able to volunteer to help out a local food and fibre producer during the current drought and fire emergency.
As you will have been hearing, many small local producers have been badly affected first by the extended drought and now by the fires in our region. In many cases, there has been direct loss of livestock, productive trees/vines, pasture and/or equipment and infrastructure.
SHA - a not for profit organisation of and for local and regional food production and consumption in south east NSW and ACT - is currently contacting local producers to find out how the drought and fires have impacted. Examples SHA already know of include clearing fallen trees, removing melted and damaged installed irrigation, ‘closing down’ productive market gardens to withstand a summer without plantings, growing seedlings for the coming season and so on.
If you think you have some time to give - whether an hour, a day or a week - please contact them via [email protected].
SHA would also be grateful if you could let them know if you have particular skills (fencing, trades skills, heavy vehicle licence, etc) or useful equipment (chain saw, trailer, tools, etc).
If outdoor physical work isn’t your thing, there’s also lots of work to be done coordinating volunteers and communicating with producers.
All contributions/effort very welcome - SHA can definitely find a very useful volunteer task for everyone !
At this stage, SHA are looking to build up a register of people who may be available and willing to help out over the coming weeks and months. If that sounds like you, please register your interest via [email protected].
In the meantime, SHA will work directly with the producers to identify tasks that need doing and arrange a day for a volunteer team to visit. They will then get back in touch with you with those details as the needs arise.
Please note: it is important that you register with SHA directly. For privacy reasons, we will not give your contact details to SHA, so you will need to register directly with them so that they can stay in contact with you directly.
Volunteers should have all the necessary things for outdoor work - a shade hat, stout shoes, gloves, sunscreen and plenty of water to drink.
If you would like more information, please contact SHA at [email protected].
