‘I’VE NEVER KNOWN A WINTER THIS BAD...IT’S HORRENDOUS’ Window

CHRIS Williamson has seen crops on his 300-acre mixed farm devastated by persistent rain since October.

The field he is pictured in would normally be seeded with wheat at this time of year.

Instead it is waterlogged along with most of his land near Shrewsbury in Shropshire.

His oilseed rape crop has also been heavily impacted by flooding.

The father of four told the Daily Express: “It has been horrendous.

“I have never known a winter this wet since I started farming in the 1990s.

“We have wet winters but then it dries up and your season comes into shape – but that has not happened this time.”

The 55-year-old said there had been about 10 days since mid-October – the time Storm Babet battered Britain – when it had not rained.

Mr Williamson explained the benefit of growing cereals was that you could drill them from September through to April.

But he said: “We just haven’t had a weather window to do that this time.

“It has just been relentless rain the whole time.

“We have not had that important drying period that would enable us to get any fieldwork done.

“And you are not getting small quantities of rain either – you are getting half an inch at a time.”

He warns that there could be a “big implication on food production within the UK and also animal food production for feeding livestock”.

Mr Williamson added: “So we will potentially be relying on imports.”

A “worst-case scenario” would see a dry and hot summer following the wet winter, meaning the plants would not be able to establish a solid root structure.

He said: “The danger now is that a lot of crops go in but they have not taken root because they have not established a root mass.

“If we go into a hot, dry spell then these crops are going to curl up and die because the roots are not deep down and will not be able to retrieve any water.”