This week Defra called an emergency drought meeting attended by the NFU, the Environment Agency, UKIA and Potato Council to discuss the implications of the current drought for farmers and growers.
As yet another month passes with below average rainfall, the potential challenges for the 2012 season are becoming ever more clear. The Environment Agency has consistently stated that it is happy to discuss licensing needs with farmers and wants to be as flexible as it can be within the rules of the licensing regime.
But it reported at the national meeting that very few farmers are coming forward and making enquiries. The message seems clear – if you are concerned about your licence and water availability on your farm, contact your area office (in Brampton or Ipswich) sooner rather than later to discuss a range of options that might be available to you.
The NFU's current priority is to monitor the ability of reservoir owners to fill them, with a number of our river flows still too low to allow winter filling because of ‘Hands Off Flow (HOF)’ restrictions.
Farmers affected by this should maintain close contact with the Agency and seize any opportunity presented to assist reservoir fill. These could include extending the abstraction period, varying daily abstraction limits, taking high flows when they occur and using larger pumps, to name just a few.
We think that January will be a key month because the Agency will be able to offer increasingly reliable predictions about spring and summer water availability at a time when growers might still have some limited room for manoeuver on cropping plans and licensing/water needs. We are liaising closely with abstractor groups and ‘barometer farmers’ in all our key catchments in the region, and we are organising meetings with the Agency for members in some of our higher risk catchments on request.
Members seeking more information on drought information and NFU activity should contact
paul.hammett@nfu.org.uk
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