Ways of safeguarding water for food production in the Fens will be under discussion when the NFU meets senior Environment Agency officials today (Thursday 1 December 2011).
The Agency’s head of water, Ian Barker, and food and farming manager Andy Turner are visiting the region as concerns grow about potential water shortages next year due to the on-going drought.
The NFU is taking the Environment Agency to two farm businesses that grow irrigated salad and vegetable crops, as well as arranging meetings with farmers and representatives of the Internal Drainage Boards that manage water levels in the Fens.
NFU senior policy adviser Paul Hammett said: “Annual rainfall levels are the lowest they’ve been for 90 years in the East of England so we need to be thinking now about how best to manage scarce water resources in 2012.
“We want to show the Environment Agency how important food production is in the Fens, to demonstrate its dependence on water level management and to highlight the steps farmers are taking to conserve water supplies.
“During the day we will discuss the lessons learnt from this year’s drought, irrigation prospects for next year, and how farmers and the Agency can work together to make the most of available water supplies.”
The Environment Agency wants all water abstractors, including farmers and businesses, to look for ways to share and make the best use of limited water resources such as setting up a water abstractor group, water audits and implementing measures to improve water efficiency.
Ian Barker, Head of Land and Water at the Environment Agency said: ‘Farmers worked extremely hard with us this summer to help manage water resources and ensure that we avoided the need to implement formal restrictions. The challenges that we are currently facing next year could be even greater with a disappointingly dry start to the winter so far.
‘It’s more important than ever that we work closely with the farming community to balance their needs with those of other abstractors including public water supply and the environment.’
The Drought Prospects report published by the Agency today highlighted the fact that groundwater levels in the East of England are below normal and many river flows are exceptionally low. The Agency is warning that at this early stage the prospects for spray irrigation are classified as ‘poor’, with the possibility of abstraction restrictions.
The Agency is advising that farmers should be assessing the risk of drought to their business and deciding what crops and varieties to grow next year. They also need to check their abstraction licence to ensure it covers the periods they may want to take water.
Last year farmers worked with their neighbours to share resources such as high flow storage reservoirs and need to plan to do this again to make the best use of what are likely to be limited water supplies next year.
After a meeting at the Ely Group of Drainage Boards in Prickwillow, the group will head out onto the Fens to see how major horticultural business G’s Growers makes efficient use of water to grow salad and vegetable crops.
They will then hold talks with local farmers at the NFU group office in Ely before travelling to Wypemere Farm, Whittlesey to meet farmer Jonathan Brown.
He has taken an innovative approach to securing a water supply for the farm, including the use of a worked-out local gravel pit as a winter storage reservoir that supplies a consortium of local farms.
No comments have been made.