One Less Thing To Worry About With A Free Flood Recovery App

Cloud Farmer - the business behind the farm management software app - has just launched a free Flood Recovery app designed to help farms affected by Cyclone Gabrielle.

The Flood Recovery app aims to give farmers one less thing to worry about. It’s a free cloud-based information storage app that aims to make tracking and recovering from recent flooding a much easier task.

Gretchen King, Managing Director of Cloud Farmer, explains why this is such an important project for the team.

“Our Family farm is near Porangahau, Central Hawke’s Bay, and we got away relatively unscathed with minor damages and a loss of access to the farm, but we’ve been busy since the cyclone helping friends and neighbours with the clean up.

My heart is aching for farmers in the region who have lost hundreds of hectares, stock and so much worse. We wanted to do something productive to help farmers, the way we know best.”

Gretchen in her role as a farmer and business owner of Cloud Farmer, as pictured for an article in Shepherdess last year.

A wide range of features

The Flood Recovery app has a range of features chosen to help recovery after adverse weather events. These include tools like recording animal health records, attaching photos and insurance documentation, holding receipts and quotes required for MPI grants, managing communications across staff, accessing the National Feed Co-ordination Service, and registering for Farmy Army assistance.

Just like the Cloud Farmer app, information can be added to the Flood Recovery when you are offline: making it easy to use wherever you are on the farm.

Farmers looking out for farmers

The free Flood Recovery app also includes important information from Federated Farmers and support services like Farmstrong, Rural Support Trust , and mental health support agencies as well as key contact information. The Cloud Farmer team knows the extreme mental stress that’s caused by events like Cyclone Gabrielle. They’re pleased to do anything to relieve the pressure and support farmers just like themselves.

Katie McCabe, Business Manager for Cloud Farmer, understands that the support farmers need at this time is not just going to be around storing information. That’s why she’s made sure the Flood Recovery app includes important well-being tools to give farmers access to mental health support and the right contacts.

“We were already noticing the decline in farmer optimism following a tough season, and unfortunately it's not isolated to the Hawke’s Bay as we have seen floods across the North Island and the opposite challenge of drought down south.

We want to encourage farmers to reach out for help if they are struggling with their thoughts. That’s why we feel an important part of the app is making it easy to get in touch with mental wellbeing support if you are in need.”

The Cloud Farmer team wants help to spread the word about the free app to help as many farms as possible to coordinate their recovery. Farmers can sign up for the app free of charge at www.cloudfarmer.app. Existing Cloud Farmer customers can access the app through the menu on their home screen.

Sign up for the Flood Recovery app at www.cloudfarmer.app

The Flood Recovery app is available for an initial period of 3 months which will be extended if farmers need it for longer while they navigate insurance claims.

When finished with the app, farmers can export their data in one file for future reference.

There is no cost to access the Flood Recovery app and there will be no cost for the time it’s available.

Features of the Flood Recovery app:

- Create and track your jobs list

- Record stock fatalities

- Create a shopping list/gear list

- Keep up to date with the notice board

- Record vehicle serial numbers

- Record animal health records of flood-affected animals

- Store insurance documents

- Record Insurance details

- Attach and store photos of flood damage in one place

- Communication across your staff

- Work offline (no service required to enter information)

- Desktop version available at cloudfarmer.co.nz

- Add additional people to your app for free (eg. staff or extended family)

- Access National Feed Co-ordination Service and Register for Farmy Army Assistance

- Export the information you need at any time to an excel file.

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