Agribusiness banking specialist Rabobank has advised of a range of support measures that will be offered to its farming clients adversely impacted by floods and extreme rainfall in northern Queensland.<\/p>\n
Rabobank acting state manager for Queensland, Brad James said that while the situation is still evolving and the full impact of the floods and prolonged heavy rainfall on agriculture will take time to assess \u2013 affected primary producers are already dealing with damage to crops, pastures, livestock and infrastructure, including sheds and fencing.<\/p>\n
Mr James said, \u201cit is very early days\u201d, with flood water still extremely high in some of those impacted regions.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe current priority is on the safety and wellbeing of people in affected districts as well as addressing concerns about loss of homes and businesses. As people start the monumental task of recovery and rebuilding from the devastating floods in the coming weeks, the full extent of the damage will become clearer,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
For the agricultural sector, Mr James said, there would be significant concern among producers regarding the loss of crops, pasture and topsoil as well as the impact on livestock and damage to stored inputs and machinery. Additional concerns include potential damage, or loss of access, to road and rail networks \u2013 which could affect the movement of goods into and out of the region.<\/p>\n
\u201cThis flood disaster is among the worst in northern Queensland\u2019s recent history and agriculture has undoubtedly borne a significant portion of the damage. However, I want to reassure affected clients that, as a bank focused on agriculture, Rabobank considers it a normal part of our business to support primary producers affected by weather conditions \u2013 even extreme events like these,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
\u201cThis is as we have done following previous floods and other severe climatic conditions \u2013 to ensure our clients are well-positioned to rebuild production and financial positions when conditions improve.\u201d<\/p>\n
Mr James said as a global specialist in agribusiness, Rabobank took a long-term view on its clients\u2019 businesses and understood dealing with periods of extreme weather was part of being in the agricultural sector.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt is our standard practice to support our clients during adverse conditions beyond their control, working with them individually to address these challenges,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
Mr James said Rabobank\u2019s staff would be contacting farming clients in impacted areas to offer support and assess the extent of any damage they have sustained.<\/p>\n
He said the bank would work directly with individual clients whose farms or agribusinesses had been affected to provide support and offer a range of assistance measures in applicable circumstances.<\/p>\n
These included:<\/p>\n
\u2018carry on\u2019 finance to keep viable operations running,waiver of break costs on early redemption of Farm Management Deposits to allow access to needed funds,deferral of scheduled loan payments andwaiver of fees on loan increases necessary for rebuilding operations.<\/p>\n
Any farming clients who had been adversely impacted by the floods and had not yet spoken to the bank should contact their local branch or phone Rabobank on 1800 025 484.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Agribusiness banking specialist Rabobank has advised of a range of support measures that will be offered to its farming clients adversely impacted by floods and extreme rainfall in northern Queensland. Rabobank acting state manager for Queensland, Brad James said that while the situation is still evolving and the full impact of the floods and prolonged […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":11982,"comment_status":"close","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[10],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-11980","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-australia"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/pacificposts.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11980","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/pacificposts.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/pacificposts.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pacificposts.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pacificposts.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=11980"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/pacificposts.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11980\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":11981,"href":"https:\/\/pacificposts.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11980\/revisions\/11981"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pacificposts.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/11982"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/pacificposts.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=11980"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pacificposts.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=11980"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pacificposts.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=11980"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}