Farmers feel the heat as the dry weather goes on
Laura Clements reports from day three of the Royal Welsh Show, where the unwelcome effects of the drought on farmers came under the spotlight
ALL OVER Wales, rivers have been reduced to a trickle and reservoir levels have dropped. There’s talk of hosepipe bans and warnings for us to use water thoughtfully.
But for some people, these dry weather conditions and scorching temperatures are having serious consequences.
As the drought has tightened its grip, some farmers have had to watch their animals die. Some even face the prospect of losing their livelihoods as they struggle with feed costs.
For Abi Reader, who runs a dairy farm in Wenvoe in the Vale of Glamorgan, the weather is far from lovely.
Abi, who was named Wales Woman Farmer of the Year at the Royal Welsh in 2016, admitted she has seen two of her heavily pregnant cows abort their calves due to heat stress. The grass in her fields is so short it doesn’t even cover her hand.
“I usually make 1,000 bales of silage each year to see me through the winter. This year, I have made 600 but have already fed 300,” she said.
Silage is grass or fodder compacted and stored in airtight conditions, typically stored to be used as animal feed in the winter.
The shortage this summer means that when winter comes around and her cows are in the winter sheds, Abi won’t have enough to keep them fed.
“At this time of year, we want to be making business decisions for investment and growth, not life or death,” she said.
Farmers cut their grass to make silage up to four times in the summer. Each time, the fields need to recover and grow back to allow for grazing and the following cut.
The lack of rain, combined with severely dry conditions, has meant silage crops have been poor and the grass has not grown back.
As farmers resort to feeding their animals with what would usually be preserved for winter, they risk running out of feed later in the season.
Aled Jones, deputy president for NFU Cymru, is a milk producer from Caernarfon.
He has already taken action to safeguard his dairy cattle.
Last week, he sank two new boreholes at a cost of £20,000 to replace two that had run dry.
He also bought in 70 tonnes of hay to replace the winter silage he is already feeding his cows with.
“It’s costing me an extra 2p per litre but I feel we have to take the hit,” he said. He estimated the drought had cost him around £80,000 so far.
Many farmers are just hoping that the rains will come.
Dafydd Jones, 19, travelled from his farm in Denbigh to show his pedigree Holstein Friesian cows at the Royal Welsh Show this year.
“There are 200 cows back at home, and they are all on bales. At the end of the week we will run out. We are just hoping for the rain to come,” he said.
The weather has forced some farmers to pay up to double for their animal feed, with one saying he knew a neighbour who was paying £760 per acre for grass.
For egg producer Victoria Shervington-Jones, the heat has been causing problems for her chickens.
She has 39,500 free-range birds on her farm in St Brides, near Newport, which are kept in three large sheds.
“They just don’t come out in the heat of the day,” Mrs ShervingtonJones said. “They come out early mornings and late evenings only, and some have started dying because of the heat stress. We just go round and pick up the bodies. We have plenty of industrial fans to try and keep the temperature constant.”
For cider producer Ben Culpin,
from the Apple County Cider Company in Skenfrith, Monmouthshire, the next two weeks are crucial.
He makes up to 100,000 bottles of cider every year.
“Like everyone, we need rain. Otherwise, the apples will not grow and they will fall off the tree before they are ready,” he said.
With livelihoods in danger, it has been warned that some farms will still face disaster
this winter even if it is an unusually short, dry and warm one.
Farmers’ Union of Wales president Glyn Roberts said weather extremes in the past 12 months had caused hardship.
“We have gone to an extreme situation with streams, wells, boreholes and even rivers drying up; vast areas of grazing becoming scorched and ungrazable; and severe impacts on fodder harvests that will leave stores
exceptionally low as we go into the autumn.
“Put simply, even if we have an unusually short, dry and warm winter, some farms may still be facing a disaster this winter, and action needs to be taken to consider ways to avert this.”
The Farmers’ Union of Wales wants the Welsh Government to carry out a national fodder audit so they know exactly where the shortages are, and can then determine what contingency
plans need to be in place for the autumn and winter.
A spokesman said: “Last year, we heard there were thousands and thousands of tonnes of fodder heading out from UK ports across to Ireland. We want the government to monitor that.
“Fodder is also used to generate power in anaerobic digestors, and again, this could be looked at. We shouldn’t be burning fodder when it could be used to feed our animals.”