CBA funded fodder drop sees Rural Aid bring farmers hay from South Australia

Semi-trailers delivered the Commonwealth Bank funded Rural Aid fodder drop, bringing welcome relief to 34 local farmers.

Rural Aid business development manager Craig Marsh said Commonwealth Bank staff were on the ground to see what was happening on the ground.

"To see what the work is that we're doing, and to see how tough things are out here," he said.

"There is almost 300 bales here today for farmers in this area, but we were only in Gunnedah last week where we had 22 road trains and dropped off 1700 bales.

"That was a bit of an exercise, but all these little bits help, and our job is to deliver hay every month. We're doing around 3000 tonne a month in NSW alone."

Wednesday's load originated from the Eyre Peninsula in south Australia.

"A lot of it is frost affected wheat. So, it's high quality hay; still got a lot of head in it," Craig said.

"It's about 12 per cent protein and in a good year it would be good conditioning hay. If this is used judiciously it will last for three to four weeks."

"One of the important facts that we make is the that to get aid from us, you have to be a registered farmer with us. Even if you don't believe you need aid now, please register, so that when you do need aid we can affect things pretty quickly."

Commonwealth Bank executive general manager Regional and Agribusiness Banking Grant Cairns said the bank kicked off its Christmas Drought Appeal two weeks ago as part of National Agriculture Day on November 21.

"We kicked that off with a $1 million donation with half of that going to Rural Aid and half to Red Cross," he said.

"We promoted an awareness for all Australians to get behind the support and to help farmers, communities and businesses in need at this time."

Grant said the support from people on the bank's internal social media channels when they heard about the appeal as amazing.