El Nino: Feed marketplace has over 10,000 bales of silage, baleage and hay ready to go

Feed Finder is a marketplace for farmers to find and source feed. Photo / RNZ / Cosmo Kentish-Barnes

By Eva Hyslop of RNZ

A feed marketplace says it is well placed with more than 10,000 bales of silage, baleage and hay ready to roll out to farmers ahead of a hot, dry summer.

An El Nino weather pattern has been declared across the country, sparking fears some regions could fall into drought, leaving farmers short of feed.

Feed Finder, founded in April last year, is a marketplace for farmers to source feed. With a few clicks, they place an order and Feed Finder handles all the logistics from delivery to compliance.

Feed Finder director and co-founder Dave Meaney said the harvest season was well underway.

“Right now we’ve got probably somewhere between 10,000 and 15,000 bales I would imagine or thereabouts on Feed Finder.

“The season has just started again in the last three or four weeks so a lot of our suppliers and contractors are literally flat-out.”

Meaney said that was about 200 bale transport trucks worth of feed and he was expecting another 5000 bales over the next three or four weeks.

When farmers were short of feed, they often gave a whistle to neighbours or farming locals. But when surplus feed was short and their networks could not stretch any further, options were limited, he said.

El Nino placed more burden on farmers already on the back foot. That was where Feed Finder stepped in, Meaney said.

“So the idea is for dairy farmers, they can just go onto Feed Finder and quickly see what different feed inventory is available across their area or even inter-regionally, what prices and what quality.

“So it makes it really easy for them ... within just a few clicks they can place an order and then at Feed Finder we manage all the logistics, we pick it up from the supplier and we manage all of the delivery and the compliance for them.”

Meaney has heard the stress from farmers having to keep their cows well fed and was confident that suppliers set up across the country would give farmers an extra leg to stand on.

Despite recent rainfall, drought often hit farmers out of nowhere, which stressed the importance of preparing for such weather events, he said.

“I think going into the season, farmers are in good shape and trying to make what they can. But in farming, things turn really quickly so all you need is really one or two or three dry weeks to completely change the game.”

Feed Finder was in talks with the likes of the Ministry for Primary Industries and Federated Farmers to ensure word of its support spread.

While most of the feed on its marketplace was North Island-based, Meaney said the service would grow in the South Island once logistics were improved.

- RNZ