Swamped fields a ‘disaster’ that’s threatening to ruin our farmers
FARMERS face a catastrophe due to unprecedented wet weather “threatening their very existence”, experts have warned.
Politicians sounded the alarm after the UK was hit by a relentless barrage of rainfall this winter.
The deluge has scuppered plans to get crops in the ground and raised fears foreign exporters will capitalise on the crisis to “flood our domestic market”.
Along with worries regarding the new Basic Payment Scheme, a major plan providing financial support to the farming industry, officials have warned of tough times ahead.
Helen Morgan, MP for North Shropshire, said: “Our farmers have faced an unprecedented wet winter, the introduction of thoughtless new trade deals, and a botched transition to a new payment scheme.
“This is a really dangerous combination for British food security and for the economy in places like North Shropshire, where 93% of land and 18% of jobs are in agriculture.
“There are crises across the industry, but particularly with crops like potatoes where red tape and delays are mixing with terrible weather to threaten the very existence of many British producers and traders.
“The only winners from this are exporters from places like Egypt who are keen to flood our domestic market.”
Chris Loder, MP for West Dorset, echoed her concerns. He said: “It’s been tough going for farmers, especially growers, and it emphasises the need for a national priority on food security to weather these storms.”
Soil expert Andrew Wilkins has been advising farmers on how to manage their crops for more than four decades.
The scientist, based in the Midlands and with clients in Shropshire, Staffordshire and Worcestershire, warned there was “no prospect of any settled weather” soon.
He said: “There has been a significant increase in rainfall.
“All the last few years seem to be getting worse.
“Soils are in an awful condition. It’s having a profound impact on the crops sown in autumn, in terms of how well established they are, and they are struggling in most cases.”
Agricultural drilling refers to the sowing of seeds in uniform rows to a standard soil depth.
Mr Wilkins warned the wet conditions meant “far-reaching effects on spring drilling”, adding: “There’s very little which has happened to date.”
The soil expert also warned of the impact the crisis was having on his clients’ mental health.
He said: “In the last few months, I have spent as much time counselling as on agronomy work.
“Because farmers are looking at situations where they have drilled very little to date, or what they have drilled has failed. So they don’t know when they are going to get alternative crops in the ground.”
Chris Williamson, one of Mr Wilkins’s Shropshire clients, now “dreads getting up in the morning” because he “cannot see how it will get any better”.
Mr Williamson runs a mixed farm, which means his trade involves growing crops as well as raising livestock.
He said: “We are facing a situation where people will not get any crops in and the fields will just be empty.
“I was hoping by May these weather fronts would have passed and we would be able to get some maize in.
“If we can’t get any maize in we can’t get any crops in at all this season, which is potentially quite a disaster.”
Hardship
But it is not just the Midlands that is suffering.
Tim Farron MP, whose Westmorland and Lonsdale, Cumbria, constituency is home to many farmers, has warned of problems in the Lake District. He
said: “Flooding here is taking away vital, productive land and adding to the hardship that the Government is already inflicting on farmers with their botched handling of the farm payments transition.
“Also, flooding of arable land elsewhere in the country has an impact on reducing the availability and increasing the price of animal feed, which is hitting livestock farmers in the Lakes.”
National Farmers’ Union vice president Rachel Hallos is now calling on the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs to fund the maintenance of existing flood defences, on top of building new ones, to help store and manage floodwater.
Writing in the Daily Express, she said: “If we are serious about boosting the nation’s food security and producing more high-quality and affordable food in the UK, then we must have supportive Government policies, and this includes investing in our national water systems.”
A Defra spokesman said: “We are acutely aware of the impact extreme weather can have on the farming community.
“That is why we have protected over 900,000 acres of agricultural land from the impacts of flooding since 2015, and why we are investing £5.6billion to better protect communities from flooding and coastal erosion.
“Alongside this, we announced a new Farming Recovery Fund, which will open imminently and provide grants of up to £25,000 to eligible farmers to return their land to the condition it was in before the exceptional flooding caused by Storm Henk.”