Changes in the weather as well as in government

Whatever the weather it's rarely right for farmers, writes Ro Collingborn

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THE weather is rarely right for farmers, it’s either too wet, too dry, too windy, too cold, too hot or too frosty. Now, as we emerge from the worst drought we have ever experienced, we are delighted to get some rain.

However, with the grass growing at last, we don’t want too much rain. An open autumn with the cattle out grazing is ideal. Tonight, the rain is bearing down incessantly, which is always a worry for flooding. We are just reseeding for the second and third time after last year’s flooding. Let's hope we get some success, and aren’t just feeding the slugs or the brook.

On the political front, the dismissal of Angela Rayner led directly to a government reshuffle, not least at Defra. When Tom Bradshaw, president of the NFU, met the new Defra Secretary, Emma Reynolds MP, on her first day in office, he highlighted the current problems facing farmers. The impact of Inheritance Tax came first, while the continued uncertainty over agri-environment schemes and the cumulative impact of trade deals were all discussed.

Tom stated: “This is a challenging time for our sector. We face an increasingly volatile global situation ~ both due to war and a changing climate - and our nation’s food security could not be more important.”

English farmers feel cheated by successive governments. The Single Farm Payment could have been continued while new schemes were in development, as in the case in Wales and Scotland. Instead, we have no current capital schemes, no environmental schemes currently available and the Single Farm Payment has been taken away.