The National Drought Group, led by the Environment Agency, is meeting monthly in response to the run of record-breaking dry weather that started in June. Meanwhile, 14 areas in England have been declared to be in drought with some hosepipe bans now in place.
Measures the Environment Agency has agreed to implement to support growers include permissions to abstract additional water where available and where this does not affect the environment; and allowing water trading between farmers within catchments. The agency says it’s also operating several of its own water transfer schemes which involves moving water locally to support river flows and agricultural abstractors.
The NFU is a member of the group along with water companies, Natural England and the Met Office and had been pressing the Environment Agency for emergency measures to enable water trading between abstractors.
NFU horticulture adviser Rupert Weaver said the situation was particularly bad for potato growers with no irrigation installations. Although potato crops with irrigation were still looking decent, the national yield would inevitably be down overall. Growers are voicing concerns about lifting crops from dry soils without damaging tubers – heavy soils in East Anglia are becoming impossible to work.
“Access to water has been very variable across the country,” he said. “Water trading will help but is hard when everyone is short.”
British Growers Association chief executive Jack Ward pointed out that the dry conditions are affecting plantings for vegetable crops due to be harvested this winter. “The production dips we are anticipating will make supplies tight as we move into late autumn and winter.
“This situation is not confined to the UK. Other parts of Europe are experiencing similar issues with production cost increases and record temperatures. So where in previous years buyers would have sourced overseas, from Europe, that may not be possible – Europe has had it far worse than us this summer.”
The Met Office has confirmed that July was the driest since 1935 and the driest on record for East Anglia, the South East and South and follows a run of drier than average months since February. The Environment Agency said by the end of July soil moisture deficits in some regions of England were greater than the long-term average.
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