The first ever national Buy a Bale Day will be held next week on 25 March.
Ray White offices across Australia, in city and country, will open their doors to the community to collect donations for bales of hay for farmers in need.
Vast numbers of Queensland and New South Wales farmers continue to suffer through a crippling drought, and this initiative intends to raise enough bales to get affecting families through the coming winter.
Over the last 16 months, Australians have given $2 million through Buy a Bale to assist drought affected farmers. The need for support is ongoing though and with many areas not receiving any rain over the wet season, the outlook for the rest of the year is very bleak.
In the lead up to Buy a Bale day on 25 March, Australians are being asked to help raise enough money to buy 50,000 bales. These bales will be purchased from hay farmers and delivered to farmers in desperate need to keep their breeding stocks alive.
“If all Australians donated one bale we’d solve our hay needs but we can’t expect that” said Charles Alder, Founder of Buy a Bale. “We’re hoping the 50,000 bales target is one we can achieve and this will make a significant impact on our farmers.”
As the weather bureau advises farmers to prepare for an El Nino and temperatures rise in western Queensland to over 45 degrees this week, Buy a Bale, the drought relief organisation is gearing up to celebrate Buy a Bale day on March 25th.
According to Charles Alder, founder of Buy a Bale "the need now is no less than it was 2 years ago when we started. Whilst many farmers have destocked, the remaining breeding stock and farmers ability to feed themselves and manage health issues is even greater now. We recently visited Mungindi on the NSW / QLD border and the region is a wasteland. Farmers are not leaving their properties because they don’t have the funds or the time while hand feeding their remaining stock, it’s another world out there."
"From March 20th we’re celebrating our farmers and using Buy a Bale day next Wednesday as the focus to raise needed funds to continue our work. Over the last 5 weeks we’ve been working with Ray White and from next week 800 agencies will act as collection centres for donations for Buy A Bale."
Paul White, Chairman of Ray White said, “our farmers are doing it tough and supporting the Buy a Bale initiative allows us to engage our city offices in supporting our rural communities. Our 800 offices across Australia are excited to be involved and are looking forward to Australians donating by coming in. Our rural offices are seeing first hand the stress and desperation our farmers are facing, we have to do all we can to help them”.
Donations can be made by visiting www.buyabale.com.au or visiting any Ray White Office Australia wide.
Key Facts and Figures
- $2million donated to farmers assistance in last 16 months
- 1500 Farmers registered with Buy a Bale
- 50,000 bales is the target of the Buy a Bale Day campaign
