Rural financial counsellors says they are expecting farmers in flood-hit areas in southern Queensland to need assistance for some time.

A fact sheet has been sent to more than 1,500 property owners in the Maranoa Regional Council area in the state’s southern inland, advising them of the financial assistance options open to them.

Karen Riethmuller, from the Rural Financial Counselling Service, says stock loss and property damage could cause problems for farmers for the next 12 months.

“Past experience has shown us it is ongoing and can run into considerable months,” she said.

“The effects are here for a long time and financially primary producers have to plan there way through this, they have to make decisions in the short term and in the long term.”

She says although the floods will be a boon in the long term, farmers are still in need of help.

“There’s been quite a spike in primary producers seeking to establish what is available to them in the aftermath of the waters and the wonderful rains that have gone through southern Queensland,” she said.

Meanwhile, a south-west Queensland mayor says some rural roads are still underwater and others are so badly damaged it could be months before trucks can use them.

Murweh Mayor Mark O’Brien says while it has been six weeks since the floods hit, council staff remain focused on fixing rural roads to help with the economic recovery.

“We’re here because it is a grazing area and we’ve got to make sure that road access to markets is good for those people,” he said.

“Some of those roads have either been so badly damaged or water is still lying across them that to get big trucks onto those properties could take months.

“I mean this an economy based on the rural industries.”

Councillor O’Brien says he is satisfied local and state governments have done what they can to help with the massive infrastructure damage.

“We have to make sure that the rural people have every possibility to operate their businesses effectively and efficiently and part of that is the road network,” he said.

“So our engineering people have been very busy trying to do the assessments on that to see where the critical places are so we can at least get single lane access into as many properties as quickly as possible.”