The Environment Agency confirmed at an NFU-organised meeting on Wednesday that the current restrictions will be lifted for approximately 150 of the 240 farmers impacted by a cessation order announced last week.
The NFU will work to find solutions for members who have not had restrictions lifted.
The NFU is also continuing its calls for the authorities to work with the farming community to deliver long-term solutions to ensure farmers and growers have guaranteed access to water during dry periods for the sake of national food security.
“We need to ensure that agriculture's voice is heard, and I'm doing my upmost to ensure that is the case.”
NFU Vice-president Rachel Hallos
‘This problem won't go away’
NFU Vice-president Rachel Hallos, who spoke at the meeting, said: “This was a huge and very immediate concern for many of our members, who are already having great challenges due to the extreme dry weather we have been experiencing.
“We are pleased to have been able to work collaboratively with the Environment Agency and Internal Drainage Board to find a quick solution for some members.
“We will work with those members who have not had restrictions lifted and see what solutions can be found for them.”
Rachel said that it was vital to continue to work with the government and Environment Agency to find long-term solutions to increasing extreme weather incidents. “This problem will not just go away,” she added.
Restrictions lifted for limited licences
The NFU called for the urgent meeting with the Environment Agency which was held on Wednesday. Farmers in the Cam and Ely Ouse catchments were in prolonged dry status, with many already making voluntary reductions, and anticipating that they had further restrictions to go before this last resort. They were therefore surprised to no longer have access to vital water for their crops when notices of cessation of abstraction licences were issued last week.
During the meeting it was confirmed that, for a limited number of licences, the water restrictions will be lifted, with the Internal Drainage Board able to add more water into the system, and new restrictions will be put in place allowing irrigation on Monday, Wednesday and Friday nights only, from 6pm to 6am.
This will be on a temporary two-week basis and then reviewed.
Those impacted are due to receive letters from the Environment Agency on Friday 18 July.
Making agriculture's voice heard
“I completely understand the importance of public access to water and the environmental protection that is needed, and we need to work together to find long-term solutions for everybody’s needs,” NFU Vice-president Rachel Hallos added.
“The scale of the problems we are seeing due to the dry weather on farms on the ground is horrendous. It is costing farm businesses enormous sums of money and some businesses will never be able to recover. This will threaten our national food security.
“We need to fix this because we could be in this situation again.
“There is huge pressure on water in this country. It's about the bigger picture, storing the water when it rains for future use.
“We need to ensure that agriculture's voice is heard, and I'm doing my upmost to ensure that is the case.”
A spokesperson for the Environment Agency said: “Prolonged dry weather continues to affect East Anglia. Low river levels and dry conditions means we have had to apply temporary abstraction restrictions in the South Level of the Fens. These pre-agreed abstraction licence conditions are there to protect the environment and the rights of other abstractors.
“We are working with the National Farmers' Union, Internal Drainage Boards, and local farmers to manage water availability. In future we can expect to see prolonged dry weather more frequently, so we encourage abstractors to make their business as resilient as possible and ask water users to use water wisely.”
Abstraction alerts
Some licence holders can now get water abstraction alerts by email. The Environment Agency sends water abstraction alerts to licence holders with ‘hands-off’ conditions when:
- a restriction is likely to come into force
- it has put a restriction in place
- abstraction can begin again.
The EA can send email alerts more quickly than postal alerts. This means licence holders and operators:
- are better able to prepare for any disruption to abstracting
- can quickly start taking water again once river flows or groundwater water levels have recovered.
Abstraction licence holders can start receiving water abstraction e-alerts by giving their email address to their local Environment Agency contact. For those in the East Anglia area, it’s easterniep@environment-agency.gov.uk.