Farmers count cost of wet weather
Farmers are counting the cost of the wet weather after yet more heavy rain brought autumn drilling and cultivations to a standstill.
Rural insurer NFU Mutual said it was dealing with more than 300 claims, ranging from flooding of homes, commercial premises and vehicles to farm buildings and workshops.
“We have got three pretty big claims in Wales with an initial estimate of £50,000 each,” said Tim Price, rural affairs spokesman, NFU Mutual.
The worst affected areas were the South West, followed by Wales and the Midlands.
“It’s a very serious flooding event. For those people affected, flooding is absolutely devastating,” added Mr Price.
Torrential rain has caused widespread flooding in the Somerset Levels over the past week, flooding farmland and main and rural roads.
The Environment Agency warned farmers that heavy downpours were threatening further flooding in Devon, Cornwall, Somerset, Gloucestershire, Warwickshire, Wiltshire and parts of Wales through Monday (26 November). More than 200 flood alerts were still in place in England and Wales by mid-morning on Monday.
The Met Office said heavy rain and high winds were moving northwards, with Wales, the Midlands and the North East braced for a soaking.
Eddy Carroll, Met Office chief forecaster, said: “The heaviest and most persistent rain on Monday is expected to be over parts of northern England and north Wales.
“Here we can expect between 30mm and 40mm of rain falling in many areas and up to 70mm of rain in parts of north-east England, continuing the risk of further flooding and travel disruption.”
David Cotton, Royal Association of British Dairy Farmers (RABDF) chairman, said his mixed farm in Glastonbury, Somerset, had received more than 100mm of rainfall since last Monday (19 November).
“Everything is sodden,” he said. “We are above the (Somerset) Levels here, but the Levels are completely under water and the roads are blocked.”
Mr Cotton said he had managed to drill his oilseed rape crops but had given up on the chances of drilling winter cereals this autumn.
“The ground has been so wet it’s hardly been worth trying to drill cereals,” he added. “We’ll probably drill a 1,000 acres (405ha) of spring barley instead, which will be a different challenge.”
His biggest issue, however, was keeping rainwater out of slurry stores to maximise available storage.
Mr Cotton said the ground was so sodden he brought his 180 milking cows indoors at the beginning of October. Similarly, his 340 youngstock and beef will be taken indoors shortly – a month earlier than normal.
“We’ve got enough fodder. We’ve got a certain amount of hay and big bales – I’m just a bit nervous whether we will have enough silage,” he added.
Robert Sullivan, of farm business specialists Strutt and Parker, said farmers in the North East were concerned about recently sown autumn crops.
“Farmers were drilling all last week putting bits and pieces of wheat in the ground in an effort to catch up,” he said.
“But there is standing water in fields all over the place. Where it’s not ponding, water is literally up to your ankles.”
Mr Sullivan, head of Strutt and Parker’s farm consultancy team at Morpeth, Northumberland, said drilling progress was extremely varied in the region – some farmers were drilled up and others were two-thirds to 75% finished.
Many farmers had consciously taken the decision to leave saturated land, following weeks of heavy rainfall, fallow until the spring, he said.
“Land that was going to go into winter crops will go into spring crops instead, purely because the ground was not going to dry out sufficiently,” he added.
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