Farmers across Britain are facing a “devastating disaster” from an “unprecedented” wet weather spell that is threatening the “very existence of many British producers”.
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”.
Helen Morgan, MP for North Shropshire, told the Daily Express: “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.”
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Conservative MP for West Dorset Chris Loder echoed her concerns: “It’s been tough going for farmers, especially growers, and it emphasises the need for a national priority on food security to be able to weather these storms.”
Agronomist Andrew Wilkins has been advising farmers on how to manage their crops for longer than four decades.
The soil scientist, based in the Midlands with clients in Shropshire, Staffordshire and Worcestershire, warned there was “no prospect of any settled weather” soon.
He said the average rainfall since records began in the 1980s in the area where one of his clients is based used to be about 680ml over a year – but in the last five years, it has increased to 932ml.
Yet since last October, weather data seen by Mr Wilkins shows 703ml of rain for 2024 so far, and in the 12 months from April 2023 to March 2024, there has been 1,132ml.
He said: “There has been a significant increase. 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.”
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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 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.”
One of Mr Wilkins’s Shropshire clients, Chris Williamson (pictured) now “dreads getting up in the morning” because he “can’t see how it will get any better”.
The mixed farmer said: “We are facing a situation where people won’t get any crops in and the fields will just be empty.
“I was hoping by May these weather fronts would have passed through and we would be able to get some maize in.
“But 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.”
But it is not just the Midlands suffering, with Tim Farron MP, whose Cumbria constituency is home to many farmers, warning 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 (Defra) to fund the maintenance of existing flood defences, on top of building new ones, to help store and manage floodwater.
Writing for 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 spokesperson 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.”
