Fields of dreams ruined – and we'll all pay price

Published on Sunday 14 September 2008 22:07

THE overnight flood devastated the farm at Belford on Bowmont, churning up surrounding roads, ripping through fences and propelling terrified animals through mangled fields.

In the sodden aftermath, farmer Richard Mather began to put back together the land and infrastructure which his father had built up in the Scottish Borders. In total, he estimated the damage to run into the thousands.

But he is not the only one who will be picking up the tab for the chaos the weather has wrought upon the UK's farms and their harvests. According to analysts, fractions of the costs will be passed on down the supply chain which takes in supermarkets and consumers.

Mr Mather farms sheep and cattle and, although he is not affected in the same way as arable farmers, the weather has hurt his stock.

He said: "The stock has not done particularly well because of the weather. From 1 April onwards, the weather has been appalling. We have had more frost and snow in April and May than the whole of the winter.

"Things did not get off to a very good start and it has rained ever since. We have had maybe two good weeks. I feel very sorry for the people who have combined crops. We don't have any arable crops to get in.

"But the lambs just don't grow as well. They are lighter than they should be. Like humans, they suffer with standing in the wet all the time. The prices have held up quite well but it's the weight of the lambs we are selling – they aren't as heavy as they should be."

For crop farmers, the impact is more immediate. Farmers say they are behind on gathering in crops and are using valuable fuel to dry them for storage. In some regions, gathering has barely started and the NFU expects yield to be down by up to 10 per cent because some grain has started to sprout.

The NFU has warned: "A poor harvest will impact on all sectors, not just grain, with a lack of fodder for animal feed, as well as having a knock-on effect in terms of planting for next year's crop.

"For wheat and barley, in particular, the harvest is both difficult and expensive in terms of gathering and drying wet, sodden crops."

And it is not just farmers who are feeling the pinch.

Recent research by market analysts Verdict found that the price of meat and fish across all types has increased by 22.9 per cent in the last year while the cost of fresh fruit and vegetables rose 14.7 per cent.

Neil Saunders of the company told The Scotsman: "In the UK, the harvest has been very poor, or will be very poor, because the crop is very, very wet at the moment and can't be used properly for human consumption. The only way to make it suitable is to dry it out and that is very, very expensive.

"That will make it very expensive for any food producer to buy. We are talking about food being quite a lot more expensive, mainly because of the drying process, which adds to the cost. Because the land is so sodden, it is very difficult to get the harvest in. Things get stuck and it's time consuming.

"The farmers will be able to pass on a little bit of cost but probably not all of it, because supermarkets will still drive a very hard bargain. Supermarkets aren't passing across all their costs. Everyone is taking a bit of a hit. People are losing out across the spectrum."

The impact of the environmental factors is all the more acute – and cruel – because it comes against a background of rising fuel and feed prices which has already pushed farmers to the brink.

And with grain stores now flooded, farmers are having to shell out again for more feed – which has gone up by about a third per tonne in a year. Fertiliser has gone up by about 200 per cent.

Mr Saunders said that, globally, the harvest had been good, which meant the price of grain had come down. However, he said there was still overarching inflation.

Last week, when announcing an 8 per cent profits slide, upmarket supermarket Waitrose said food prices were likely to come down.

Mark Price, the chain's managing director, claimed a combination of a good summer vegetable harvest and a good global wheat harvest would see reductions on some products and a levelling-off on others. He admitted the price of meat was continuing to rise but said supermarkets were prepared to absorb the cost.

"What we are seeing is beef prices up by 25 per cent, lamb by as much as 50 per cent, but we are not passing that on to the consumer," he said.

Richard Dodd, of the British Retail Consortium, said rises were "slowing" and suggested "we might be nearing the peak".

But this is reckoning without the unpredictability of the weather, as farmers in the Scottish Borders are all too well aware.

Jim McLaren, president of NFU Scotland, said the impact of the rain on their farms had been "absolutely catastrophic".

He said some areas had received up to half of their annual rainfall in the last 40 days, and some had got five inches in 48 hours. Acres of potatoes are under water, at a cost of 5,500 per acre.

Mr McLaren added: "It has come at such a critical time for farmers who should be harvesting and sowing just now.

"Indeed, the majority of Scottish farmers have only brought in half of their harvest and in many cases, what has been brought in is of a much poorer quality because it has been so wet.

"It is not just crops which are affected. There are infrastructure problems too, with entire bridges and farm roads being washed away. This means that even where crops can be salvaged, there may be no access to the fields.

Mr Mather believes the extent to which consumers' pockets are affected by the poor harvest is down to the supermarkets.

He said: "It depends on how the supermarkets play it. If they decide they want to promote lamb at a lower price they will just do it and the price to the producer will just reduce.

"Being a primary producer we are at the mercy of the buyers and the final price paid is dictated by very few people."

For the moment, the 47-year-old is simply concentrating on putting his 1,350 acres of land back together after the rains of 5 and 6 September.

He added: "We have been flooded before and we know what it's like but this last flood went a step further. You have to see it to believe it.

"We have to adapt the whole time and we are used to adapting.

"I would like to think everyone will be all right but you do not know everyone's personal circumstances and the extent of their borrowing. People are not as well off as they might have been."