Alongside a panel including Emma Howard Boyd, Chair, Environment Agency and Peter Simpson, Chief Executive, Anglian Water, Ms Batters will outline how farmers are working with other stakeholders to help improve the resilience of rural areas to flooding.
Ms Batters said; “We recognise that farmers have a role to play in mitigating the risk of flooding to others in the catchment. However, natural flood management is not a panacea solution and should only be used as part of a coherent, planned component of total catchment management.
“In our new Flooding Manifesto the NFU’s preferred approach is for Government to establish a long-term, strategic plan for flood and coastal risk management. This plan must be designed to cope with extreme events, take a whole catchment approach to management decisions and intervention. Consideration should also be given to the impacts of infrastructure and development on agricultural land.
“One of our main asks of Government and its agencies is to have a greater emphasis on making decisions at a catchment level, using the local knowledge of farmers and other stakeholders.”
Led by the Environment Agency, the Flood & Coast 2017 conference draws together 1,500 stakeholders in the UK’s largest event for flood and coastal erosion risk management (FCRM) professionals.