You can’t make hay if the sun doesn’t shine

The year’s topsy-turvy weather, with a threatened hosepipe ban in March but reservoirs full to the brim by July, has affected harvests of almost every food grown in the county.

And with agriculture now as globalised as any other industry, farmers have been hit by unexpected shortages from overseas.

Cllr Alan Cockburn has been a farmer for more than 40 years and grows wheat, oats, oilseed rape and linseed on his 600-acre farm on the edge of Kenilworth.

He described how constant rain since April had caused “havoc”.

Cllr Cockburn said: “Nothing has had a chance to dry out, and that has affected different sectors of the industry differently.”

Warwickshire is known for mixed farming, and one of its biggest producers is salad grower Bomfords.

In a “disastrous” year for salads, vegetables and soft fruits, Cllr Cockburn said machines had sunk into soft ground, while farmers hoping to cut grass in June for silage or hay were forced six to eight weeks to wait until fields had dried out. While this did increase bulk, the silage is of lower quality, meaning those with livestock will be forced to buy winter feed, in turn more expensive because droughts in America have caused maize and soya prices to rise 30 per cent in the past eight weeks.

Bishop’s Tachbrook sheep and livestock farmer Brian Smith’s fields were so sodden in places, he could not get crops off the fields.

Production costs will have risen by ten to 15 per cent, but Mr Smith hesitated to say whether supermarkets would pass this on to customers, or keep prices they pay to producers low.

All this doesn’t only mean misery for farmers. Mr Smith said: “Livestock are like us, they like a bit of sun on their backs.”

For cereal farmers such as Cllr Cockburn, the damp has led to a build-up of fungal diseases such as mildew, and the lack of sunshine means the grains are shrivelled, lower in starch and smaller than they should be.

But even with a poor wheat harvest, Cllr Cockburn said a 50 per cent rise in prices should not add more than two pence to the price of a loaf of bread.

Gardeners lamenting their poor tomato crop will have fallen victim to the same lack of pollinating insects that has led to a bad year for ‘top fruits’ such as apples and plums.

Cllr Cockburn said many of the great historic famines had been caused not by too little rain but too much. Disruption to the calendar, whether it affects water or wildlife means agricultural shows as well as pop festivals being cancelled.

He added: “If you’re splashing about in wellies at Glastonbury, farmers will be complaining.”