Growers met with government agencies to discuss options to deal with hail damage

The Department of Primary Industries and the National Resilience and Recovery Agency all met with with over 100 growers at the farm of Phillip Andreatta for a forum on how to access needed support and for farmers to share their stories.

Chair of the Riverina Citrus Growers Vito Mancini put together the forum with Andrew Creek to bring together almost everyone needed to take firm action on the natural disaster that's now estimated to have inflicted almost $36 million in damages.

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A key hope of the meeting was to re-categorise the disaster to a category C rating, which would allow for further support to go to those impacted.

Many of the agencies are stuck collecting data for those higher up the chain, with the Department of Primary Industries collecting survey data on damages and the NRRA ensuring that it goes to who needs it.

"First and foremost, we make sure that information goes through our portal. My team in resilience will find out what needs to be done. We need to make sure that information is representative though," said Donna Argus, the Director of Local Coordination and Service Delivery at Resilience NSW.

Ms Argus confirmed that they had applied to get the disaster moved to category C, but hadn't yet heard back.

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Over 90 reports have been filed with the DPI, adding up to over $36 million in damages across the Griffith LGA alone. Unfortunately, it seems the only people available to re-categorise the disaster are ministers, none of whom were at the meeting.

Dan Brear from NSW Farmers said that it was about making sure those in power understood the real impacts of the storms in regional NSW.

"Growers are now happy to see some action. It's a matter of putting word to print and actually have some support packages for them ... I'd love to invite all the ministers out here to see it firsthand," said Mr Mancini.

Mental health remains a significant concern of those in the industry, and several support services attended as a reminder for growers to know where they can access help.

Jenn Paggett is a farm community counsellor from the MLHD.

"I've come up from Albury, just to let people know the offer is there ... What people forget is the trauma can be ongoing, it's longterm," she said.

"Crises affect different people in different ways."

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