Just a few of the problems

In the countryside, on the farms, only wind and sunshine can dry out the waterlogged ground and in mid-November, sunny days tend to be in short supply. Even more importantly, flood damage insurance is not readily available for the vast majority of farmers and our local NFU office has confirmed this fact.

Most farmers will have their own story to tell about the storms and floods and I have talked to some of them in order to try to get a picture of the cost to the industry.

The first person I spoke to was Chris Hoggard, from Old Malton, who farms about 360 acres of land, much of which was also flooded just 18 months ago. Chris has followed in the footsteps of his father, Gordon, and taken over Howe Bridge farm and Manor farm as a tenant of the Fitzwilliam Estate. Chris's grandfather took his first small farm in Old Malton in 1927 and we have an old photo showing him delivering milk around the village from the back of a horse-drawn rulley during the floods of 1930. The 1931 floods happened on the day of Malton Show, which was held about the third week in July and meant that the show recorded a massive loss because of reduced attendances due to the railway being closed.

Chris, who runs the farm today with the help of his father Gordon, grows about 300 acres of arable crops, which include winter wheat, winter barley, oilseed rape, potatoes and sugar beet. They have managed to get their potatoes lifted and nearly all the winter corn has been sown ready for next year, but Chris faces an anxious wait to see how much of the land which was under water will need re-sowing because the seed has gone rotten in the ground. To be able to re-sow this land, the soil will have to dry out sufficiently to carry a tractor and drill and this will most certainly have to wait until spring. Because this year's floods are so widespread, seed for spring-sown cereals will be in short supply and most likely very expensive but land must be cropped in order to pay the bills.

Manor farm's house and buildings are on the higher land in Old Malton and it was into these old-fashioned cattle yards that Chris and his father were able to move some cattle which had been standing in 12 inches of water in their normal yard at Howe Bridge. In this respect, they were lucky a dry shed was available, but it all makes extra work. These cattle are kept by the Hoggards to graze their river bank grasses behind the church.

Both Gordon and Chris are very critical of the lack of positive action to control the river flows around the village and say that better maintenance would help to minimise the flooding. Like many of the other long-term farming families in the area, they have seen floods before and know the weaknesses of the system and also believe that any impediment on a water course will reduce its flow. Like most other farmers, here will be no insurance company to help this farming family over this year' flood crisis.

Farther up the river, at Brawby, I spoke to Steven Stonehouse, whose family have farmed at Norfolk Lodge for over 50 years. This is an all-grass dairy farm on which they also run a flock of sheep. Steven told me that thanks to a phone call, warning him about a deluge of rain in Rosedale, they had managed to move their dairy heifers out of one riverside field but that warning came too late to save some sheep in another field. In spite of help from friends who were working waist-deep in the floods, they lost 14 gimmer lambs into the river. He said wading in water which was chest-deep at midnight had been a very frightening as well as dangerous experience.

Mark Bulmer, from Salton, had a similar story to tell, but he managed to save his sheep and had taken them inside into the buildings with the help of a boat. He still has 60 acres of winter corn under water, a lot of which will drown out and have to be re-sown.

John Jackson, from Beningbrough Hall, right on the banks of the Ouse near York, has a different problem. He, too, had a lot of land flooded and still has about 20 acres of fodder beet to lift which had been under water this last week. If the land dries up, it should be possible to harvest this, but the flooding will affect the keeping quality of the beet which is grown for cattle food. John's most serious worry is the vast amount of filthy rubbish which has been left behind by the flood waters and the polluting effect this will have on his land.

These are just a few of the problems faced by four farmers who have been flooded during the course of the past two weeks but this is only a small part of the story on the farms. Those of us who live on higher ground face problems caused by the massive amounts of rain we have had this year and there are thousands of acres of potatoes still in the ground today. No machine, however big, can travel over waterlogged land, and in many parts of the country there are still cereals to be harvested. Insurance to cover situations like this is not available to farmers. All we can do is pray for fine weather and higher prices for our produce and hope that people will buy British-produced food.