THE United Dairyfarmers of Victoria has called on the Federal and State Governments to get on with the job of delivering $30 million in Dairy Recovery Concessional Loans.
“These 10-year recovery loans need to be made available immediately,” UDV President Adam Jenkins said.
“There’s no reason why agreement can’t be reached between the Federal and State Governments to deliver these loans – right now, so farmers know there’s low-interest, long-term loans available to help them through the milk price crisis.”
“Farmers need the details of these loans now so they can compare what the government has made available with the loans the milk processors are offering.”
The Federal 10-year Recovery Loans allow farmers to pay interest only for the first five years at a rate of 2.66 per cent, then interest plus principal for the remaining five year.
The Federal Government has made available a separate parcel of $30m in 5-year Drought Concessional Loans to Victorian farmers who’ve have been severely affected by the state’s 1 in 20 year drought.
As it stands only $2m of these shorter-term five-year loans have been rolled out to drought-affected farmers, with applications due to close on October 31.
“We understand that Victoria received $750,000 to cover the administrative costs of rolling out these drought concessional loans,” Mr Jenkins said. “Given just $2 million of these drought loans have been rolled out it seems reasonable that the state use the remainder of the $750,000 to roll out the new round of $30m in Dairy Recovery Loans.”