Farmer warns repeat floods threaten food production

Yorkshire arable farmer Richard Bramley fears relentless wet weather and regular flooding will lead to farmers looking at alternatives to the “risky business” of producing food.

Without significant recognition to keep food production viable on increasingly vulnerable productive land, many farmers will be seriously looking at options such as Environmental Land Management (ELM) and private markets including biodiversity net gain.

Mr Bramley’s 200ha arable farm near York has flooded for the sixth time in the past four years. About one-third of the land is under water up to 10ft deep in some areas.

See also: Q&A: What are your rights when farmland is flooded?

“Normally, this area of land [75ha] could produce enough calories to sustain about 10,000-plus people for a year, but because it is now flooding pretty much every year I am strongly considering taking it out of production,” he said.

Mr Bramley has no doubt that his situation is being mirrored by many farmers across the country and he fears the UK government has not considered the impact on food production.

The much-anticipated Land Use Framework is expected to be released this year and it will place an expectation that quality land, such as that presently under water in many parts of the country, will see an increase in production.

But Mr Bramley said: “We need a belt and braces approach to how we protect and manage our best and most productive land.

“Too much policy is built on the past rather than looking ahead to the challenges we are likely to face, such as an increased population, increased climatic challenges to food production, and global conflicts.” 

The Environment Agency issued 293 flood warnings (flooding is expected) and 319 flood alerts (flooding is possible) for England on Friday 5 January after many regions received further heavy rainfall in the preceding 24 hours.

SFI payments for flood management

Later this year, a range of new options will be available under the Sustainable Farming Incentive (SFI) to reward farmers and landowners for storing water on their land to prevent further flooding downstream.

Defra secretary Steve Barclay announced plans at this week’s Oxford Farming Conference to reward farmers for converting arable land into areas to store water and for having habitats such as species-rich grasslands, which can work well as both floodplain meadows and hay meadows.