UK: Farmers prepare for drought measures
This week the Environment Agency has released an updated report on drought prospects and management plans. irrigations bans are currently anticipated in throughout Eastern England, should there continue to be under average rainfall in the forthcoming weeks.
Environment Agency personnel are working together with representatives of the agricultural industries to encourage voluntary restrictions, flexibility in licensing agreements and possible extensions to March 31st deadline for filling winter storage reservoirs, in order to take advantage of any rainfall that may be forthcoming.
Some farmers have already raised caution, saying that formal restrictions being enforced would lead to disastrous outcome for the industry, particularly in potatoes and in late season crops such as carrots and lettuces.
Rob Parker is a farm manager with East Coast Growers, which produces 15 million lettuces a year. As his growing season finishes in mid-November, he is very concerned about the possibility of abstraction restrictions later in the year.
"If we don’t water them, they don’t get to a saleable size, so we are in a situation where, if restrictions come in, it would be a case of not growing a crop this year,"he said. "It is a whole farming business which could be affected at the flick of a switch. We are greatly reliant on water and decisions are being made on abstraction which is pivotal for my business. We are already growing a lot of these crops under glass, so the production cycle is already in full swing. If restrictions come in and we run out of water my business would have to look for a new strategy or somewhere else to grow those lettuces."
The EA drought report says: "River flows and groundwater levels are unlikely to recover and will pose significant risks to spring planting and subsequent summer abstraction. Those farmers relying on refill of winter storage reservoirs to the normal levels to irrigate crops later in the year, will be hit hard. Spray irrigation prospects currently look much less favourable for this time of year than they have for several years, particularly in East Anglia. This will significantly impact on food production.
"The Environment Agency and National Farmers' Union are working with water companies to ensure there are emergency plans in place for this eventuality.”
Ian Pearson, senior environment planning officer for the EA’s eastern region, said the agency was keen to be as flexible as possible in making temporary variations to licences to help farmers make the best use of any available water.
"We are looking for voluntary restrictions at the moment," he said. "If that doesn’t have the response we are looking for we have the ability to apply formal restrictions on abstraction activities. None of us want to do that, but whether or not we need to depends entirely on rainfall.
"As a generality, depending on the weather and rainfall, formal restrictions could kick in as early as June, or they might not kick in until as late as October. But each catchment will be different, and we have just got to wait and see what happens.
"We are required by the regulations we work within to ensure the environment is protected, and we already work within minimum criteria. We shouldn’t allow abstraction to continue right up to the point where fish start dying."
Paul Hammett, the National Farmer’ Union’s senior policy advisor for East Anglia, said: "In the short term, it is a coping strategy.
"As the weeks go by without much rainfall to talk about, the prospect of some form of restriction in some areas is going to be when, not if. Our job then becomes one of keeping the impact of those restrictions to a minimum.
"For example, in the River Lark catchment in West Suffolk, a group of abstractors have decided this week they would voluntarily reduce the amount of water they are legally allowed to abstract by 20% in the hope that they can avoid a total ban.
"It is sacrificing water now in the hope they can keep something in the system for the whole growing period of their crops. It is very creative and quite responsible because farmers recognise the environmental impact of water shortages, and they want other industry sectors to follow suit."
The Environment Agency report is calling on growers to adopt a sharing, conversational policy for the duration of the drought and to do all that they can, as individual, to maintain their own water supplies, for instance repairing any leaks they may have.
Source: www.eadt.co.uk
