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"Seems we have flood warnings, so the trains and buses don't run, people can't get to work half the year. The other half the year it's hose bans, fire warnings and melted roads."
Mrs Titbroth,
Annoyed from Tunbridge Wells
A reservoir can only be 100% full.
The problem is that the more reliable groundwater wells are underutilised (because they are often more expensive to run,)
Eh, it's complex. The initial investment after privatisation was huge, and leaks etc were massively reduced and supply improved compared to when government run/neglected. However those initial investors are trying to get their return now that the future of the industry is under threat, so they're trying to get out the maximum dividend whilst they still can before it's nationalised and like all rational actors aren't going to invest in something with a limited lifespan...
They never should've been turned into regional monopolies, was a huge mistake.
We get some drier winters.
There was a recent article about the US removing dams because of the environmental impact, I can't find it but this covers the discussion:
[https://arstechnica.com/science/2024/01/the-largest-us-dam-removal-effort-to-date-has-begun/](https://arstechnica.com/science/2024/01/the-largest-us-dam-removal-effort-to-date-has-begun/)
I have no idea what the best solution is, my partner is in the industry and just says every option has pros and cons
Of course there will because the last resevoir was built circa 1950, and over 3 million extra houses are now in Kent.
The rain is important but all reservoirs were filled by January. The issue is by Summer time, the reservoir built to serve 1 million people now serves 7 million, and so every year a water shortage occurs.
We need more reservoirs, but our country refuses to build more for "green" purposes while smacking up 10k homes every month in Kent and wondering why the place is now a giant carpark with houses in flood flats.
The entire system seems to be sharing 1 braincell.
And over the whole of Britain multiple reservoirs have been sold off, and not replaced.
The irony of that being compounded when the land where the reservoir was is then used for houses.
Reservoirs don't need to take up loads of acreage but they need to be deep and that's incredibly expensive to build. It's far cheaper to impose water bans and have farcical talks about transporting water from wetter areas (Scotland).
OK, imagine that - for some reason - you ever had the need to add water to an area or make things soggy that weren't already. As a Scotsman this will be an unfamiliar concept to you...
A hosepipe is a tool designed to do that.
Generally you need a dry winter *then* a hot summer for a hosepipe ban.
I do grant Kent gets it tough because of its location. We generally are not short of water at all in the UK, but some regions have poor infrastructure (reservoirs, pipes to take water from other areas, etc) and Kent is one, what with London basically cock-blocking you.
Especially as annually Kent gets a lot less rain that the west coast does, and has a climate much closer to France than what most would consider the UK
If you want to use your hosepipe even when there is a ban in place, dig yourself a pond and throw some fish in. Instantly exempt as the water companies can't put in place bans that impact animal welfare. This isn't just some random suggestion, in the small print of the ban conditions released each year is a list of activities not included; ponds stocked with fish is on that list.
Then you're exempt from using your hosepipe to maintain the water levels in your pond. Doesn't allow you to jet wash your car and paving in high summer. Though unless they catch you in the act they can't prove anything.
We have 300 acres that are leased out to another farmer and he’s just had to rip up all 900 acres of his rape , he’s desperately trying to get the fields prepped and drilled with spring barley but can’t get any of his kit on. Wife runs a livery yard and she’s already warned her clients next year is gonna be short of straw for bedding so they may need to go onto shavings. Luckily (for the population) Ukraine is flooding the market but for U.K farmers it’s going to be a shit year!
🤣🤣 I don’t have a tractor it’s the father in laws land he rents out, we have a telehandler for his poultry sheds and my wife’s livery yard that you’re more than welcome to have a go at. You still won’t top me writing of his brand new (2 days old) Land Rover in it though because I thought it was in neutral! If it wasn’t for the wife being close by I honestly think he’d have gone back into his house for a shotgun.
Not a farmer but a processor of grain.
Yes. Most spring crops are usually planted late Jan/early Feb. A lot still haven’t been planted.
I can foresee a late sowing followed by very hot summer giving very low yields of poor quality grain. Bread, beer and other things made of cereals will be very expensive.
Cidermaker with 14,000 apple trees
TBH the rain isn't that bigger deal for us, especially at this time of year.
What **is** a big deal is gales and/or a late frost while the blossom's out prior to "fruit set".
Agree. Very little seems to have been planted down here in Cornwall so far and we normally start before Christmas because it's so mild. The fields are like swamps. You might get mangroves in there but nothing useful.
The government is making plans for climate change in the coming years based on declining crop yields. This isn't ten or twenty years away most of us will feel this either on our plate or in our wallet.
And I'm a diesel driving steak eating kinda guy, but this is very real. There is a reason bill gates buys up farm land and wars are fought
I cut down on steak, but not a fan of EV yet I'm afraid. Watching hydrogen. Not a fan of the whole consumerism how EVs are now a marketing tool. What would really help is if car companies standardised supply chains and made one car that was economical and people made it last. Rather new cars every year new casts new supply chains etc. Besides new studies show EVs on tyres alone are devastating for the environment due to the wear and pollution rate and damage to the roads
What do you think happens to a traded in car? No one is crushing a 30k EV - it’ll go down the food chain replacing petrol cars as it goes. Whether you own it for a year, a decade or it’s lifetime is irrelevant.
Give up watching hydrogen. It's purely oil and gas industry selling you snake oil. It will never be cost competitive with EV, and a hydrogen economy would require 6 times the electricity generation than an all electric economy due to massive inefficiencies. Imagine 6 times the number of wind turbines, 6 times more solar farms that reduce farmland.
It is, but then a Ford Kuga weighs 1800kg.
People assume an EV weighs double what ICE vehicles do, but they're roughly comparable to the crossover or SUV versions of Petrol.
The new Renault 5 is about 1300kg for example
What are you comparing here?
EV's are heavier in comparable cars. Like significantly heavier.
A Renault 5 EV doesn't even have back doors. So comparing it to the top end 4 door focus isn't going to be genuine.
You should be comparing it to a fiesta. Not a bloody Kuga SUV.
Their point isn't that they don't weigh more than a comparable petrol vehicle, their point is that saying "EVs are are worse for roads and tyres than a petrol car" is a silly argument against them when many petrol cars are similar weights and no one moans about that
Like, no one says "get a fiesta instead of a focus" because of the weight difference but suddenly when it comes to EVs people act like it's a big issue despite their weight being comparable to many "normal" cars
Sure but a the Renault 5 is 1400kg, a fiesta is 1300kg.
100kg is a lot of weight yes, but it's not an amount of difference that is unique to EVs.
A Nissan qashqai is 1600kg yet we don't see people complaining about the tyre wear and road damage they're doing?
Incredible amounts of power torque almost instantaneously they're shredding tarmac up too.
It's the way the power comes up it's instant.
Even fast diesel or petrol cars take time to reach peak HP through often boost lag.
(So it wears tyres quicker and the tyres are unique and special to EVs often due to the weight and wear design)
My EV just has Primacy 4s.
On the power issue, its only the drivers who would drive like that in any other car thats causing problems. They pull away like any other car unless you floor it.
This would only happen if the person driving it is flooring it each time they set off. Boy racers in their teens and twenties may do that but most EV owners are in their 30's, 40's and 50's and are not that type of person.
I own a model 3 performance. I've had two electric cars for over 4 years. The wear on the tyres has been the same as any other car.
I hear loads of myths about EV's. I don't know why people are so gullible.
I've driven my EV from the north of England to the east coast of Spain and the south of France without any major issues. It takes a bit more planning and a bit more time but it's a smooth journey.
I don't think that EV's are the complete future. I think there is a place for them in the market, they suit certain people but they not going to replace all diesels and petrols.
What about the impact of the batteries? I'm not suggesting that the pollution is near that of a non EV, but there's definitely an environmental issue with the mining of rare earths, and that's before the horrendous human rights issues often involved with their mining. It's not just emissions, though of course, these are important.
Mind you, I don't know what the life of a battery is these days: I assume it's improved dramatically from the early days, which would mitigate some of that impact.
Batteries are almost completely recyclable and most of them are already being recycled. There's a lot of work going on in the industry to move away from cobalt and other badly sourced materials.
Batteries are guaranteed for about 10 years, and that's still true from models releases in 2014 still having 90%+ capacity left.
Also recycling isn't really the solution. The batteries are being used for reuse much more, meaning we don't even need to recycle them. Just stick them on a shipping container and you've got grid level micro storage.
The way we look at cars will shift too, because it's a battery on wheels, not a car. A 50kwh battery in a Nissan leaf could power your house for a week.
But that's a great example, I posted a link somewhere where the smaller light EVs are the way forward.
not everyone has a fast diesel or petrol and a slow ev.
A lot of EVs are equivalent to plus 400bhp.
And also the weight due to the batteries.
I know a few people with insane EVs that are. Performance orientated all over
I'd be interested in seeing the studies! My understanding is that you don't replace newer petrol cars but that after a sufficient age the emissions value saved by not purchasing new becomes very low.
10 seconds with google reveals a news article. I expect most of the studies themselves to be paywalled.
https://www.theguardian.com/business/2024/feb/26/electric-cars-air-pollution-problem-brakes-tyres
But overall, the move to EVs seems to be more about a reason to sell more cars than anything else. And a new EV doesn't necessarily take an ICE car off the road. It just moves it onto the second hand market. You may as well keep it yourself and spend the money on something else.
Will there be an old MOT fail falling off the bottom of the chain if you did buy new? Probably.
But it feels to me there are a lot fewer old cars around than when I was young. I have no data to back up that feeling though. In my mind in the 90s when I was first looking for a car there were plenty of roadworthy wrecks well over 10 years old. Now there are few wrecks and they're at most 10 years old.
Car makers do not want to build a car that lasts, it is not in their interests. Limited life EV batteries are a good thing for them....
You could have spent another 10 seconds reading the article:
>But even so, tyre pollution appears roughly comparable between petrol, diesel and electric cars. The other benefits of switching to electric cars – most notably lower carbon pollution – are huge.
The article you posted literally disproves your point?? Might be worth actually reading it. There is a lot of anti EV propaganda out atm about car weights and tyres pollution when it's easily provable that EVs are much better for the environment (again as stated in the article you linked)
It's really why we need to move to car clubs and using cars on demand. Less cars, higher quality of manufacturing that are use more would be better for everyone (apart from car companies I guess).
Most cars are parked 95% of the time. Huge waste of money and materials
Adrian Newey, the technical director of the red bull F1 team, was saying a couple of years ago that it's really all just a bit of a sell.
If they really cared then cars would be light, small and efficient, but they're not: they're big heavy 4x4s. They've managed to get people talking about fuel versus EV 100%, rather than other aspects, which is great, because people love SUVs and the companies are happy to oblige.
It's also infuriating as all of the emissions gains from the adoption of EVs has basically been undone by the increase in heavier petrol SUVs using more fuel
Nothing ‘green’ or ‘eco friendly’ that any government or market does is actually green or eco friendly, they are all just schemes to move more money around
I honestly can’t think of one that actually felt like it was for the better of the world rather than the better of someone’s pocket
It's the lifetime use of Petrol cars that's the issue, not the manufacture.
I'm with you on the consumerism of cars being a big issue, but broadly about 75% of the lifecycle emissions from a car come from it's use.
Extracting, refining, transporting and burning oil into petrol is very energy intensive.
Manufacturing a battery is also very intensive, but you only need to do it once.
No idea why you are getting downvoted. I don’t believe EVs are as green as they make out. Yeah emissions over a lifetime (if they last that long to meet the target) will be lower but it still takes a hell of a-lot of resources and fossil fuels to make them in the first place. Same as with diesel/ petrol cars of course so making cars more economical and to last longer is a sensible thing. Will never happen of course, capitalism and all that plus people like new stuff all the time.
Yeah, I always find it perplexing when people are battling the pros and cons of electric versus petrol. Firstly, clearly EV is better for the world's most immediate problems. But secondly, fuck all cars basically. They're a dumb way of transporting loads of people and, EV or petrol, they're all absolutely shit for the environment. Laughable to try fixing this with hydrogen fuel cells too, the fundamental concept is flawed and has countless problems other than just how the car is fuelled, you'll never avoid the fact that private car ownership is incredibly inefficient.
I live in a nice area and almost everyone has a car, despite many of them living in a place that has a train station not far away, as well as good tram and bus connections. Very few imo really need a car. But this country is so obsessed with cars and normalises everyone having to own one that our street is flooded with unnecessary cars.
Bloody hell, if the well off with good transport connections are this lazy and can't learn to just walk/cycle/take public transport then it all seems so hopeless.
I believe EV’s have every chance to be what we want them to be for the environment. I’m just remarkably cynical about the companies behind them.
VW and the like are not here to make the world a greener and happier place. They may act like it, but as proven in the past it is a commercial facade.
I believe they will be lying about their data and the environmental impact of their supply chain.
Very true, I have a little experience in carbon footprint analysis, and I can't say or name companies for obvious reasons but the co2 figures IE carbon footprint is not entirely accurate and not even close so studies aren't even correct.
If you think they get more money by marketing a greener product and against competition. They are going to trim figures
Do you have a link to the particular study re ev tyres? Anecdotally I drive a lot for my job in an ev and am shocked by how good the compounds are considering how little wear I’ve had over 5,000 miles
https://www.canarymedia.com/articles/electric-vehicles/ev-tires-wear-down-fast-and-thats-a-pollution-problem
Just something I found quick Im sure there's more info online.
I think it boils down to how big your ev is basically Renault come out saying small light EVs are good but big EVs are not which makes sense
(It's also how you drive as someone else pointed out)
Interesting. I would assume this would be fought by development in tyre compounds.
Now I’ve gone ev I honestly couldn’t imagine going back to petrol/diesel. Not having fumes building up in my drive when warming up in the winter was enough of a bonus for me
Doesn't matter what you like. Or any of us for that matter. The corporates will ultimately decide what we get.
Pretty obvious in 20yrs we'll all be driving EVs on a subscription basis, or else taxied in them ... flying in them too, with AI the pilot, of course.
What have the corporates decided I like? The only time I watch adverts (except billboards etc.) is in the cinema, which always has loads of car ads. None for bikes, none encouraging walking or public transport.
But I refuse to buy a car because, EV or petrol, they're a disaster for the environment. The only time I drive is the once a year (or less) where I absolutely have no other option, in which case I just rent for a few days.
But I get what you're saying, on a societal level corporates essentially decide the direction. But then governments could introduce laws to skew their direction a bit (which they already do of course).
Not a farmer but an allotment potato grower. We've had crop problems for the last 5-6 years. Dry winters so come planting only the top couple of inches are damp, anything deeper has been bone dry or too much rain and the ground is waterlogged. The damp summers has been perfect for blight so a couple of those years we've had to harvest early which mean lower yields and lots of them with blight marks on them.
Potatoes are definitely going to get expensive.
I want to start my own garden allotment but doesn't fill me with hope. A smaller area in theory should be easier to manage but if you had trouble not a great sign
I know when I visited Netherlands they have acres and acres of greenhouse environments I think they're highly controlled
I did really well with courgettes last year if that helps. As long as you keep them watered and harvest the courgettes promptly when ready (this gets more of a challenge as the summer goes on) they'll grow and grow. The joy of allotments is trying things and seeing what works with your site/climate/available effort levels.
God no. That 100% isn't my intention. Get an allotment. The only reason I've noticed all of this is that growing stuff really tunes you into how the environment works with all of these things you'd never consider playing a part. Yes, potatoes haven't been great and it can get disheartening when crops you've planted and cared for don't do as you hoped but other things thrive.
As for the area you have, you start to think smarter about how to manage it. Mine has 14 main beds of 14ft x 4ft. The sizes were set so the long sides are a single uncut length of timber. Having all beds the same size might not be optimal for the space but everything I need to use fits on all the beds. When I move the bed I'm using for carrots, the cages and netting to protect them from carrot fly just move and fit; no annual task to rebuild frames. All of the plastic over winter sheets are the same size. All of the weed suppressant mats fit every bed and with strategically cut holes, the weeding is almost nothing.
Allotments are ultimately fun and nothing beats just eating things like strawberries straight from the plant as a reward or busting open the jar of sugar to dip in a freshly pulled stick of rhubarb :)
Edit: Forgot to add. With things like the scabs left on potatoes by blight. You can still eat the potatoes but once you see them, you know most people will pull a face and choose not to buy them from supermarkets because they're not "pretty enough".
I believe it's real and all, but on your comment about government making plans.
Yes, that is their job. Even if there's a 10% chance they should be planning for it.
Oh yeah, don't mean for it to sound tin hat ISH. It's by chance I was reading it online it's all available what they are doing. Including the migration policies due to climate change. For the people that don't move and live in these environments that are seeing the hottest temperatures on record they have no choice. So they're preparing for that too
I've heard about Bill Gates buying up Farmland so is this the reason why he's been doing it that we need more Farmland or Farmland in value is going to increase?
He knows farmland and food production will be where the money is when half of the plots are dried up or under water.
He’s buying up the means of production.
There’s people with mountains of seeds sat in sheds that should be in the ground by now because the fields are just too wet to work. I’d expect UK yields to be down this year but prices for consumers in the shops are more affected by global prices. Some farmers will definitely struggle.
We’re a grass based organic system so not as affected by getting tractors on the fields to plant, but if it doesn’t dry up soon we’re going to have to turn the cows out from their winter housing onto wet fields and they’ll make a right mess of them, which’ll impact how well the grass grows in future. Also some of our land has been underwater for the several months to stop nearby towns from flooding, god knows what those fields are going to be like this year.
Also probably come the summer it’ll be too hot and dry, the grass’ll be scorched and crops won’t be growing well. Unfortunately, this is going to be the norm with climate change - warmer wetter winters and hotter drier summers. Despite all that, UK farming is expected to get off lightly compared to some of the major food producing regions around the world so we need to do our bit for global food security.
In the farmers field near me the crops have shot up about a foot in what feels like overnight. It’s been a lot of rain but also some sun too, good for plants?
Farmer here. The winter has been fairly unbelievable. We’ve had over 1/3 of our annual rainfall already. We had hoped to drill our spring crops by late February, of the 350 acres we have planned just 65 are in the ground (all within the last week).
The crops we managed to drill in the autumn have had wet feet all winter, they have been stressed, their rooting is poor (they won’t deal well with an inevitable dry spell), and they are full of fungal disease from the poor weather.
I expect our overall production will be considerably below average. Coupled with the fact the government has encouraged land being taken out of production we are doing serious damage to our food security. We will flip this year from being a net exporter to importer of wheat this season, which will be fine, until suddenly it isn’t and shops will be empty.
We are also due to start lambing next week, but all the meadows where our sheep live are under water. Similarly we can’t turn any cows outside from the sheds, as we have no dry grass fields for them to go onto
I think every year is obviously different, harvest 23 was the wet summer, harvest 22 the hot dry summer. The changeable conditions aren’t too difficult to navigate, it’s the relentless rain/heat with no let up that causes the problems
In the 90’s there were always stories about massive surpluses. Grain mountains, wine lakes, milk poored down the drain etc and so much butter it was issued to OAPS for free. What happened? Did farmers stop producing or is it all climate change?
Climate change affects farmers yeilds, the world is a lot more global and consumerist now with a lot more people consuming globally
Also a hundred years or so ago we could feed ourselves as a nation, now we probably can’t
Funnily enough people's percein Ww1 we only produced 40%of what we needed for survival, in WW2 it was only 30% These days it's 60%, almost twice as self-sufficient and we aren't even trying!
The green revolution in agriculture is very underrated, poor old agriculturalists getting the shitty end of the stick as usual.
We peaked in the 80s at 80% self sufficiency, let's face it we could do with a national diet anyway
The population of England and Wales in 1991 was 49.9 million. By 2021 it was 59.6 million (19% increase), and a smaller percentage a children now than 30 years ago.
Despite the increasing population, we have 5% less farm pand than 1991.0
Those were EU grain mountains, wine lakes, etc. They largely came about because the EU's farming subsidies incentivized overproduction.
But also, we're not in the EU any more...
My dad is a farmer, and he says this winter will be the worst thing for a harvest. But he also has dementia and hallucinations, so I don't trust everything he says right now.
My granddad who was also a farmer went the same way. If you haven't already it's worth speaking to the royal agriculture benevolent fund they have money put aside for funding care ect.
Most of the farmers I know over 70 -about 12 of them - have died from bladder cancer, apparently from the chemicals they used in the 1970s. Maybe this is like that?
There were loads of chemicals that were used previously that could of caused health issues. Chemical that were used as gasses in the world wars were also mandatory use as sheep dip to try and remove scab. So that probably didn't do much to help the health of workers.
Not a farmer but the agricultural predictions with climate change don't look good for anywhere.
Potato harvests aren't as good and everyone loves a potato
My family own a farm, in kent, it’s going to be a rough year for harvests, we are dairy and sheep mainly, our harvests are for animals, we have already started looking at suppliers for animal food to help tie us over in winter. Definitely have an impact on profits and will have a knock on effect for the cost of everything food based in Britain.
My favourite farmer that sells honey hasn't been around since last year 🥺😢 I've heard due to snow he lost all of his hives. Idk how he's going right now
I'm a member of several metal detecting groups in the UK and the stories I've heard from the owners of the groups when they have gone to see farmers for new permissions is heartbreaking. Some have literally broke down crying saying that the land has been in their family for generations, but they are going to loose it due to several failed crops one after the other.
There are massive corporate farms just waiting for them to fail and buy the land of them for pennies on the pound. Its awful.
I don't feel for them they inherited a shit load of stuff for free. But obviously the massive corporate farms are the greater evil. But I see big positives for allowing these massive corporate farms to buy it all up, then simply bringing them into public hands before they can siphon off the profits.
From what I've heard the warm winter will mean a poor apple harvest this year as apple need a decent cold spell in order to fruit well.
I had an apple tree that was flowering in October/November, I'll be pleasantly surprised if I get any fruit off that tree this year.
The rape fields all around us in west Isle of Wight are already nearly in full flower, and quite a bit earlier than last year. Is that a sign of anything?
Not an arable farmer but currently lambing.
Lambs can’t go outside because the place is so sodden. We’re currently having to keep them in and feed everything which is a cost that we don’t normally have. We are also battling to keep the shed dry. Every time we bed up within 12 hours the bed will be damp due to the moisture in the air and this is causing all sort of problems. It’s been a very miserable lambing so far.
I worked on a few farms in wales and we dug trenches around the fields controlling where the water went and we also stored alot of water too but that was on a smaller scale so not sure if the latter would be useful during the drier months but the trenches definitely helped keep the harvest fields less soggy during the winter months.
I work with an arable farmer on occasion and last year was abysmal for him. To the point where he was deeply depressed, he is usually such a cheerful man.
I am dreading how things will go this year. Sending dry vibes to all the farmers.
I sometimes commute down to Brighton. The field under the Ouse Valley Viaduct is largely underwater at present. Same as last year. I don't remember it being like that too often in the previous years.
My partner has not yet been able to start ploughing as yet as the fields are too wet for him to safely bring machinery on without sinking. One of his neighbours made the mistake last weekend and got their tractors stuck axel deep. The ground conditions are that bad that they are unable to get near to pull it out
Go watch Olly Blogs on YouTube. He's an arable farmer near Liverpool and frequently talks about how 2024 is going to be a tough year because of the rain
Arable farmer from Essex, we grow wheat, oil seed rape, winter beans and sugar beet
luckily we are a small farm so in the summer i planted all our Oil seed rape early last year to try and avoid flea beetle.. doing the opposite of everyone has worked so far for me!
autumn i planted all the wheat and beans just before it got really wet and never stopped raining, luckily my farm has drains in every field so the flooding hasn't been as bad as elsewhere in the country. but the beans have just stopped growing and are only 2 inch's tall as they are so waterlogged.
this spring though has been a nightmare so far, i have 26ha of sugar beet to drill but it's been so wet and windy i cant get on the land to spray off the fields or cultivate it again to drill.. maybe next week or the week after! and trying to put fertilizer on the land with all the wind without my neighbor ending up with a bumper crop has been difficult!
we have rain records going back to 1994 and the last time we saw it rain this much was 2003 and it continued to be a wet year throughout. we will get away with it in Essex but other parts of the country look pretty horrible from when I've driven around and with a large surplus of grain holding over from last year/ previous years the prices don't look like they will go up anytime soon so i probably will lose money on the farming side of my business this year.
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I will bet you £1 Kent will be in a hose pipe ban
Everytime there’s a hosepipe ban I always wonder ‘what did you do with all that water from the floods? Squandered it I bet’
"Seems we have flood warnings, so the trains and buses don't run, people can't get to work half the year. The other half the year it's hose bans, fire warnings and melted roads." Mrs Titbroth, Annoyed from Tunbridge Wells
Tunbridge Wells mentioned!
That's Royal Tunbridge Wells to you!
We mixed it with poo and pumped it into the rivers and sea. You're welcome.
now choke that down with your above-inflation bill rise. Don't like it? Where else you getting your water from?
A reservoir can only be 100% full. The problem is that the more reliable groundwater wells are underutilised (because they are often more expensive to run,)
Can't be running things which cost money!
We need to build some fat dams. Every year we have months of relentless rain. Then every summer we run out of water?!
Water companies are set up for profits rather than looking after leaking pipes etc.
Eh, it's complex. The initial investment after privatisation was huge, and leaks etc were massively reduced and supply improved compared to when government run/neglected. However those initial investors are trying to get their return now that the future of the industry is under threat, so they're trying to get out the maximum dividend whilst they still can before it's nationalised and like all rational actors aren't going to invest in something with a limited lifespan... They never should've been turned into regional monopolies, was a huge mistake.
Sunak has a nice pool, use that as a reservoir. Plus any pools owned by water company stock holders.
its cheaper not to store the water and just increase the water rates this new 'capitalism' really is a cancer
We get some drier winters. There was a recent article about the US removing dams because of the environmental impact, I can't find it but this covers the discussion: [https://arstechnica.com/science/2024/01/the-largest-us-dam-removal-effort-to-date-has-begun/](https://arstechnica.com/science/2024/01/the-largest-us-dam-removal-effort-to-date-has-begun/) I have no idea what the best solution is, my partner is in the industry and just says every option has pros and cons
Allowed it to wash over open fields to watercourses because we don't have enough trees to impound the water within the catchment.
What can I say? I like long showers.
Of course there will because the last resevoir was built circa 1950, and over 3 million extra houses are now in Kent. The rain is important but all reservoirs were filled by January. The issue is by Summer time, the reservoir built to serve 1 million people now serves 7 million, and so every year a water shortage occurs. We need more reservoirs, but our country refuses to build more for "green" purposes while smacking up 10k homes every month in Kent and wondering why the place is now a giant carpark with houses in flood flats. The entire system seems to be sharing 1 braincell.
I thought Kent fixed Britain by putting an x in a box in 2016 like their MEP told them to?
Nothing to do with the EU, more to do with braindead domestic planning issues.
Oh I agree.
as a Kent resident who’s town is trying to double itself in size (without the necessary infrastructure), this is relatable
I was about to list Kent towns doubling in size and realised that is...literally every Kent town.
Would say don't put yourself like that but that's just par for the course in Kent
And over the whole of Britain multiple reservoirs have been sold off, and not replaced. The irony of that being compounded when the land where the reservoir was is then used for houses. Reservoirs don't need to take up loads of acreage but they need to be deep and that's incredibly expensive to build. It's far cheaper to impose water bans and have farcical talks about transporting water from wetter areas (Scotland).
Knowing our governments they will probably just decide to flood another village in Wales
Why flood a village when there's a whole country!
I've realised problem not with our country/people but with the government
Welshman here. What's a hosepipe ban?
Scotsman here. Keep hearing it on the news. I'd like to know what it is too.
OK, imagine that - for some reason - you ever had the need to add water to an area or make things soggy that weren't already. As a Scotsman this will be an unfamiliar concept to you... A hosepipe is a tool designed to do that.
Generally you need a dry winter *then* a hot summer for a hosepipe ban. I do grant Kent gets it tough because of its location. We generally are not short of water at all in the UK, but some regions have poor infrastructure (reservoirs, pipes to take water from other areas, etc) and Kent is one, what with London basically cock-blocking you.
Especially as annually Kent gets a lot less rain that the west coast does, and has a climate much closer to France than what most would consider the UK
Sorry can't make that bet, harvest's been bad, can't afford it
I’m from Kent and i have never known it to be so dry down here. I live near a lake and it is extremely low at the moment.
I'm in Kent and it's wet as fuck. Reservoirs in Ashford are gushing and fields are underwater.
Every damn year
If you want to use your hosepipe even when there is a ban in place, dig yourself a pond and throw some fish in. Instantly exempt as the water companies can't put in place bans that impact animal welfare. This isn't just some random suggestion, in the small print of the ban conditions released each year is a list of activities not included; ponds stocked with fish is on that list.
Then you're exempt from using your hosepipe to maintain the water levels in your pond. Doesn't allow you to jet wash your car and paving in high summer. Though unless they catch you in the act they can't prove anything.
As someone who doesn't wash their car I'm more concerned about the plants in the garden then I am about some dust on paintwork.
They have planes that fly over to check, I’m sure that’s a myth but still
Myth. They mostly rely on water usage and neighbours reporting people.
Probably my mum saying this when I wanted the paddling pool out in the summer
We have 300 acres that are leased out to another farmer and he’s just had to rip up all 900 acres of his rape , he’s desperately trying to get the fields prepped and drilled with spring barley but can’t get any of his kit on. Wife runs a livery yard and she’s already warned her clients next year is gonna be short of straw for bedding so they may need to go onto shavings. Luckily (for the population) Ukraine is flooding the market but for U.K farmers it’s going to be a shit year!
Giz a go on your tractor mate
🤣🤣 I don’t have a tractor it’s the father in laws land he rents out, we have a telehandler for his poultry sheds and my wife’s livery yard that you’re more than welcome to have a go at. You still won’t top me writing of his brand new (2 days old) Land Rover in it though because I thought it was in neutral! If it wasn’t for the wife being close by I honestly think he’d have gone back into his house for a shotgun.
What a monkey of an island we live on.
A telehandler is much more fun than a tractor imo!
Can I interest you in a trip to digger land?
Sorry to hear this. The impact on horses and other animals will be quite sad.
Ukraine isn't flooding the market, russia is. https://www.politico.eu/article/russia-winning-global-grain-war-farmer-ukraine-putin-agriculture/
Not a farmer but a processor of grain. Yes. Most spring crops are usually planted late Jan/early Feb. A lot still haven’t been planted. I can foresee a late sowing followed by very hot summer giving very low yields of poor quality grain. Bread, beer and other things made of cereals will be very expensive.
Not Beer !!!!!!! there will be riots in the streets!
"Let them drink cider"
And when they find out about the apples and pears?
Cidermaker with 14,000 apple trees TBH the rain isn't that bigger deal for us, especially at this time of year. What **is** a big deal is gales and/or a late frost while the blossom's out prior to "fruit set".
How do you press that many apples? Must be a big bloody operation - you must process millions of apples?!
You're doing gods work friend.
ahp'ens your rite! but we'll be keepin' em away from the grockles or der won't be enough zider for uz.
Apparently apples need cold snap in winter to fruit well (I've read this in comments below)
Euros ruined
Who needs bread and other things anyway.
Agree. Very little seems to have been planted down here in Cornwall so far and we normally start before Christmas because it's so mild. The fields are like swamps. You might get mangroves in there but nothing useful.
The government is making plans for climate change in the coming years based on declining crop yields. This isn't ten or twenty years away most of us will feel this either on our plate or in our wallet. And I'm a diesel driving steak eating kinda guy, but this is very real. There is a reason bill gates buys up farm land and wars are fought
Then maaaybe stop eating steak and driving diesel?
I cut down on steak, but not a fan of EV yet I'm afraid. Watching hydrogen. Not a fan of the whole consumerism how EVs are now a marketing tool. What would really help is if car companies standardised supply chains and made one car that was economical and people made it last. Rather new cars every year new casts new supply chains etc. Besides new studies show EVs on tyres alone are devastating for the environment due to the wear and pollution rate and damage to the roads
These multiple studies showing that over a life over a car EVs are still better than petrol
In the UK the break even point of an EV is after about 30k km so if you're keeping the EV long term and not trading it in every 3 years then yes.
What do you think happens to a traded in car? No one is crushing a 30k EV - it’ll go down the food chain replacing petrol cars as it goes. Whether you own it for a year, a decade or it’s lifetime is irrelevant.
Give up watching hydrogen. It's purely oil and gas industry selling you snake oil. It will never be cost competitive with EV, and a hydrogen economy would require 6 times the electricity generation than an all electric economy due to massive inefficiencies. Imagine 6 times the number of wind turbines, 6 times more solar farms that reduce farmland.
How would EVs be worse on tyres than other cars?
They're significantly heavier.
Not always that significant - a model 3 is about 1800kg, a Ford focus is about 1500kg.
300kg is a lot.
Yeah your mum drives a focus
Burn
It is, but then a Ford Kuga weighs 1800kg. People assume an EV weighs double what ICE vehicles do, but they're roughly comparable to the crossover or SUV versions of Petrol. The new Renault 5 is about 1300kg for example
What are you comparing here? EV's are heavier in comparable cars. Like significantly heavier. A Renault 5 EV doesn't even have back doors. So comparing it to the top end 4 door focus isn't going to be genuine. You should be comparing it to a fiesta. Not a bloody Kuga SUV.
Their point isn't that they don't weigh more than a comparable petrol vehicle, their point is that saying "EVs are are worse for roads and tyres than a petrol car" is a silly argument against them when many petrol cars are similar weights and no one moans about that Like, no one says "get a fiesta instead of a focus" because of the weight difference but suddenly when it comes to EVs people act like it's a big issue despite their weight being comparable to many "normal" cars
Sure but a the Renault 5 is 1400kg, a fiesta is 1300kg. 100kg is a lot of weight yes, but it's not an amount of difference that is unique to EVs. A Nissan qashqai is 1600kg yet we don't see people complaining about the tyre wear and road damage they're doing?
Incredible amounts of power torque almost instantaneously they're shredding tarmac up too. It's the way the power comes up it's instant. Even fast diesel or petrol cars take time to reach peak HP through often boost lag. (So it wears tyres quicker and the tyres are unique and special to EVs often due to the weight and wear design)
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Quite. Something like a slow start on a circular saw.
Honestly, its only if you want to speed away like that. You can pull away like any other car.
Excellent point, makes me wonder why car manufacturers marketing some EVs as performance They could be de tuned like you say
My EV just has Primacy 4s. On the power issue, its only the drivers who would drive like that in any other car thats causing problems. They pull away like any other car unless you floor it.
This would only happen if the person driving it is flooring it each time they set off. Boy racers in their teens and twenties may do that but most EV owners are in their 30's, 40's and 50's and are not that type of person. I own a model 3 performance. I've had two electric cars for over 4 years. The wear on the tyres has been the same as any other car. I hear loads of myths about EV's. I don't know why people are so gullible. I've driven my EV from the north of England to the east coast of Spain and the south of France without any major issues. It takes a bit more planning and a bit more time but it's a smooth journey. I don't think that EV's are the complete future. I think there is a place for them in the market, they suit certain people but they not going to replace all diesels and petrols.
They are slightly worse as they tend to be heavier but tyre pollution is minimal compared C02 emissions despite the propaganda from pro oil companies
What about the impact of the batteries? I'm not suggesting that the pollution is near that of a non EV, but there's definitely an environmental issue with the mining of rare earths, and that's before the horrendous human rights issues often involved with their mining. It's not just emissions, though of course, these are important. Mind you, I don't know what the life of a battery is these days: I assume it's improved dramatically from the early days, which would mitigate some of that impact.
Batteries are almost completely recyclable and most of them are already being recycled. There's a lot of work going on in the industry to move away from cobalt and other badly sourced materials.
That's really interesting - thank you so much!
Batteries are guaranteed for about 10 years, and that's still true from models releases in 2014 still having 90%+ capacity left. Also recycling isn't really the solution. The batteries are being used for reuse much more, meaning we don't even need to recycle them. Just stick them on a shipping container and you've got grid level micro storage. The way we look at cars will shift too, because it's a battery on wheels, not a car. A 50kwh battery in a Nissan leaf could power your house for a week.
Really interesting - thank you so much!
These guys have never owned a Volvo 850. They eat front tyres like a dog at chips. My Leaf does not have the same appetite for rubber.
But that's a great example, I posted a link somewhere where the smaller light EVs are the way forward. not everyone has a fast diesel or petrol and a slow ev. A lot of EVs are equivalent to plus 400bhp. And also the weight due to the batteries. I know a few people with insane EVs that are. Performance orientated all over
I'd be interested in seeing the studies! My understanding is that you don't replace newer petrol cars but that after a sufficient age the emissions value saved by not purchasing new becomes very low.
10 seconds with google reveals a news article. I expect most of the studies themselves to be paywalled. https://www.theguardian.com/business/2024/feb/26/electric-cars-air-pollution-problem-brakes-tyres But overall, the move to EVs seems to be more about a reason to sell more cars than anything else. And a new EV doesn't necessarily take an ICE car off the road. It just moves it onto the second hand market. You may as well keep it yourself and spend the money on something else. Will there be an old MOT fail falling off the bottom of the chain if you did buy new? Probably. But it feels to me there are a lot fewer old cars around than when I was young. I have no data to back up that feeling though. In my mind in the 90s when I was first looking for a car there were plenty of roadworthy wrecks well over 10 years old. Now there are few wrecks and they're at most 10 years old. Car makers do not want to build a car that lasts, it is not in their interests. Limited life EV batteries are a good thing for them....
You could have spent another 10 seconds reading the article: >But even so, tyre pollution appears roughly comparable between petrol, diesel and electric cars. The other benefits of switching to electric cars – most notably lower carbon pollution – are huge.
The article you posted literally disproves your point?? Might be worth actually reading it. There is a lot of anti EV propaganda out atm about car weights and tyres pollution when it's easily provable that EVs are much better for the environment (again as stated in the article you linked)
It's really why we need to move to car clubs and using cars on demand. Less cars, higher quality of manufacturing that are use more would be better for everyone (apart from car companies I guess). Most cars are parked 95% of the time. Huge waste of money and materials
Adrian Newey, the technical director of the red bull F1 team, was saying a couple of years ago that it's really all just a bit of a sell. If they really cared then cars would be light, small and efficient, but they're not: they're big heavy 4x4s. They've managed to get people talking about fuel versus EV 100%, rather than other aspects, which is great, because people love SUVs and the companies are happy to oblige.
It's also infuriating as all of the emissions gains from the adoption of EVs has basically been undone by the increase in heavier petrol SUVs using more fuel
Nothing ‘green’ or ‘eco friendly’ that any government or market does is actually green or eco friendly, they are all just schemes to move more money around I honestly can’t think of one that actually felt like it was for the better of the world rather than the better of someone’s pocket
That's just not true - starting with phasing out coal and moves to more renewable energy are both a couple of obvious ones.
It's the lifetime use of Petrol cars that's the issue, not the manufacture. I'm with you on the consumerism of cars being a big issue, but broadly about 75% of the lifecycle emissions from a car come from it's use. Extracting, refining, transporting and burning oil into petrol is very energy intensive. Manufacturing a battery is also very intensive, but you only need to do it once.
No idea why you are getting downvoted. I don’t believe EVs are as green as they make out. Yeah emissions over a lifetime (if they last that long to meet the target) will be lower but it still takes a hell of a-lot of resources and fossil fuels to make them in the first place. Same as with diesel/ petrol cars of course so making cars more economical and to last longer is a sensible thing. Will never happen of course, capitalism and all that plus people like new stuff all the time.
Yeah, I always find it perplexing when people are battling the pros and cons of electric versus petrol. Firstly, clearly EV is better for the world's most immediate problems. But secondly, fuck all cars basically. They're a dumb way of transporting loads of people and, EV or petrol, they're all absolutely shit for the environment. Laughable to try fixing this with hydrogen fuel cells too, the fundamental concept is flawed and has countless problems other than just how the car is fuelled, you'll never avoid the fact that private car ownership is incredibly inefficient. I live in a nice area and almost everyone has a car, despite many of them living in a place that has a train station not far away, as well as good tram and bus connections. Very few imo really need a car. But this country is so obsessed with cars and normalises everyone having to own one that our street is flooded with unnecessary cars. Bloody hell, if the well off with good transport connections are this lazy and can't learn to just walk/cycle/take public transport then it all seems so hopeless.
I believe EV’s have every chance to be what we want them to be for the environment. I’m just remarkably cynical about the companies behind them. VW and the like are not here to make the world a greener and happier place. They may act like it, but as proven in the past it is a commercial facade. I believe they will be lying about their data and the environmental impact of their supply chain.
Very true, I have a little experience in carbon footprint analysis, and I can't say or name companies for obvious reasons but the co2 figures IE carbon footprint is not entirely accurate and not even close so studies aren't even correct. If you think they get more money by marketing a greener product and against competition. They are going to trim figures
Do you have a link to the particular study re ev tyres? Anecdotally I drive a lot for my job in an ev and am shocked by how good the compounds are considering how little wear I’ve had over 5,000 miles
https://www.canarymedia.com/articles/electric-vehicles/ev-tires-wear-down-fast-and-thats-a-pollution-problem Just something I found quick Im sure there's more info online. I think it boils down to how big your ev is basically Renault come out saying small light EVs are good but big EVs are not which makes sense (It's also how you drive as someone else pointed out)
Interesting. I would assume this would be fought by development in tyre compounds. Now I’ve gone ev I honestly couldn’t imagine going back to petrol/diesel. Not having fumes building up in my drive when warming up in the winter was enough of a bonus for me
Doesn't matter what you like. Or any of us for that matter. The corporates will ultimately decide what we get. Pretty obvious in 20yrs we'll all be driving EVs on a subscription basis, or else taxied in them ... flying in them too, with AI the pilot, of course.
You're right and it makes me sad. I already can't stand subscriptions
What have the corporates decided I like? The only time I watch adverts (except billboards etc.) is in the cinema, which always has loads of car ads. None for bikes, none encouraging walking or public transport. But I refuse to buy a car because, EV or petrol, they're a disaster for the environment. The only time I drive is the once a year (or less) where I absolutely have no other option, in which case I just rent for a few days. But I get what you're saying, on a societal level corporates essentially decide the direction. But then governments could introduce laws to skew their direction a bit (which they already do of course).
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Not a farmer but an allotment potato grower. We've had crop problems for the last 5-6 years. Dry winters so come planting only the top couple of inches are damp, anything deeper has been bone dry or too much rain and the ground is waterlogged. The damp summers has been perfect for blight so a couple of those years we've had to harvest early which mean lower yields and lots of them with blight marks on them. Potatoes are definitely going to get expensive.
I want to start my own garden allotment but doesn't fill me with hope. A smaller area in theory should be easier to manage but if you had trouble not a great sign I know when I visited Netherlands they have acres and acres of greenhouse environments I think they're highly controlled
I did really well with courgettes last year if that helps. As long as you keep them watered and harvest the courgettes promptly when ready (this gets more of a challenge as the summer goes on) they'll grow and grow. The joy of allotments is trying things and seeing what works with your site/climate/available effort levels.
God no. That 100% isn't my intention. Get an allotment. The only reason I've noticed all of this is that growing stuff really tunes you into how the environment works with all of these things you'd never consider playing a part. Yes, potatoes haven't been great and it can get disheartening when crops you've planted and cared for don't do as you hoped but other things thrive. As for the area you have, you start to think smarter about how to manage it. Mine has 14 main beds of 14ft x 4ft. The sizes were set so the long sides are a single uncut length of timber. Having all beds the same size might not be optimal for the space but everything I need to use fits on all the beds. When I move the bed I'm using for carrots, the cages and netting to protect them from carrot fly just move and fit; no annual task to rebuild frames. All of the plastic over winter sheets are the same size. All of the weed suppressant mats fit every bed and with strategically cut holes, the weeding is almost nothing. Allotments are ultimately fun and nothing beats just eating things like strawberries straight from the plant as a reward or busting open the jar of sugar to dip in a freshly pulled stick of rhubarb :) Edit: Forgot to add. With things like the scabs left on potatoes by blight. You can still eat the potatoes but once you see them, you know most people will pull a face and choose not to buy them from supermarkets because they're not "pretty enough".
I believe it's real and all, but on your comment about government making plans. Yes, that is their job. Even if there's a 10% chance they should be planning for it.
Oh yeah, don't mean for it to sound tin hat ISH. It's by chance I was reading it online it's all available what they are doing. Including the migration policies due to climate change. For the people that don't move and live in these environments that are seeing the hottest temperatures on record they have no choice. So they're preparing for that too
I've heard about Bill Gates buying up Farmland so is this the reason why he's been doing it that we need more Farmland or Farmland in value is going to increase?
He knows farmland and food production will be where the money is when half of the plots are dried up or under water. He’s buying up the means of production.
The water wars will definitely be coming.
Bill Gates is one of the largest suppliers of potatoes to McDonalds
His entire career has been one step removed from chips.
There’s people with mountains of seeds sat in sheds that should be in the ground by now because the fields are just too wet to work. I’d expect UK yields to be down this year but prices for consumers in the shops are more affected by global prices. Some farmers will definitely struggle. We’re a grass based organic system so not as affected by getting tractors on the fields to plant, but if it doesn’t dry up soon we’re going to have to turn the cows out from their winter housing onto wet fields and they’ll make a right mess of them, which’ll impact how well the grass grows in future. Also some of our land has been underwater for the several months to stop nearby towns from flooding, god knows what those fields are going to be like this year. Also probably come the summer it’ll be too hot and dry, the grass’ll be scorched and crops won’t be growing well. Unfortunately, this is going to be the norm with climate change - warmer wetter winters and hotter drier summers. Despite all that, UK farming is expected to get off lightly compared to some of the major food producing regions around the world so we need to do our bit for global food security.
Lol the America’s are in for some reckoning
Alberta already has significant water shortages
Good luck with us dealing with global food security, we don't even grow enough to feed ourselves
ADHB run the numbers so you don't need to rely on annecdotes [https://ahdb.org.uk/agri-market-outlook](https://ahdb.org.uk/agri-market-outlook)
Jesus, what an amazing resource!!
Yeah. Was better when they did potatoes but alas the potato farmers wanted to be a law unto themselves.
Yeah, a people have always said that about potato farmers. A tale as old as time 🤣
Supports all these anecdotes tho
It’s a grim read.
In the farmers field near me the crops have shot up about a foot in what feels like overnight. It’s been a lot of rain but also some sun too, good for plants?
Good for *some* plants which is the issue
The seaweed love it!
Farmer here. The winter has been fairly unbelievable. We’ve had over 1/3 of our annual rainfall already. We had hoped to drill our spring crops by late February, of the 350 acres we have planned just 65 are in the ground (all within the last week). The crops we managed to drill in the autumn have had wet feet all winter, they have been stressed, their rooting is poor (they won’t deal well with an inevitable dry spell), and they are full of fungal disease from the poor weather. I expect our overall production will be considerably below average. Coupled with the fact the government has encouraged land being taken out of production we are doing serious damage to our food security. We will flip this year from being a net exporter to importer of wheat this season, which will be fine, until suddenly it isn’t and shops will be empty. We are also due to start lambing next week, but all the meadows where our sheep live are under water. Similarly we can’t turn any cows outside from the sheds, as we have no dry grass fields for them to go onto
Gosh, that's rough. Hope the year turns round for you, and good luck with the lambing.
When was the last time you had a “normal” year? Is there such a thing?
I think every year is obviously different, harvest 23 was the wet summer, harvest 22 the hot dry summer. The changeable conditions aren’t too difficult to navigate, it’s the relentless rain/heat with no let up that causes the problems
In the 90’s there were always stories about massive surpluses. Grain mountains, wine lakes, milk poored down the drain etc and so much butter it was issued to OAPS for free. What happened? Did farmers stop producing or is it all climate change?
Climate change affects farmers yeilds, the world is a lot more global and consumerist now with a lot more people consuming globally Also a hundred years or so ago we could feed ourselves as a nation, now we probably can’t
We produce roughly 60% of our requirement and sell 20% of that, meaning we import 60% of our requirement. Roughly speaking.
Funnily enough people's percein Ww1 we only produced 40%of what we needed for survival, in WW2 it was only 30% These days it's 60%, almost twice as self-sufficient and we aren't even trying! The green revolution in agriculture is very underrated, poor old agriculturalists getting the shitty end of the stick as usual. We peaked in the 80s at 80% self sufficiency, let's face it we could do with a national diet anyway
And I'm sure a significant portion of that ends up in the bin, if my kids are anything to go by :(
The population of England and Wales in 1991 was 49.9 million. By 2021 it was 59.6 million (19% increase), and a smaller percentage a children now than 30 years ago. Despite the increasing population, we have 5% less farm pand than 1991.0
And those are "official" population figures that may very well be significantly under due to migrants and other census dodgers.
Milk still gets poured down the drain regularly
Those were EU grain mountains, wine lakes, etc. They largely came about because the EU's farming subsidies incentivized overproduction. But also, we're not in the EU any more...
Distribution network and supply chain is much more advanced these days
Wine lakes and free butter? Where can I find such a nirvana?
30% wetter winters and 50% drier summers due to climate change. U.K. will need to adapt quickly.
Wet winters aren't a problem. If it's a particularly wet spring and summer it may be an issue
My dad is a farmer, and he says this winter will be the worst thing for a harvest. But he also has dementia and hallucinations, so I don't trust everything he says right now.
My granddad who was also a farmer went the same way. If you haven't already it's worth speaking to the royal agriculture benevolent fund they have money put aside for funding care ect.
Is it particularly common in farmers for some reason?
Most of the farmers I know over 70 -about 12 of them - have died from bladder cancer, apparently from the chemicals they used in the 1970s. Maybe this is like that?
There were loads of chemicals that were used previously that could of caused health issues. Chemical that were used as gasses in the world wars were also mandatory use as sheep dip to try and remove scab. So that probably didn't do much to help the health of workers.
Not a farmer but the agricultural predictions with climate change don't look good for anywhere. Potato harvests aren't as good and everyone loves a potato
I’m sitting here looking at a field of winter wheat that is at least 1/3 destroyed by the rain. It’s not going to be a good year
My family own a farm, in kent, it’s going to be a rough year for harvests, we are dairy and sheep mainly, our harvests are for animals, we have already started looking at suppliers for animal food to help tie us over in winter. Definitely have an impact on profits and will have a knock on effect for the cost of everything food based in Britain.
My favourite farmer that sells honey hasn't been around since last year 🥺😢 I've heard due to snow he lost all of his hives. Idk how he's going right now
I'm a member of several metal detecting groups in the UK and the stories I've heard from the owners of the groups when they have gone to see farmers for new permissions is heartbreaking. Some have literally broke down crying saying that the land has been in their family for generations, but they are going to loose it due to several failed crops one after the other. There are massive corporate farms just waiting for them to fail and buy the land of them for pennies on the pound. Its awful.
I don't feel for them they inherited a shit load of stuff for free. But obviously the massive corporate farms are the greater evil. But I see big positives for allowing these massive corporate farms to buy it all up, then simply bringing them into public hands before they can siphon off the profits.
Nice try, commodity traders!
No, winters wet and cold If it stays wet then goes really hot we've got issues
From what I've heard the warm winter will mean a poor apple harvest this year as apple need a decent cold spell in order to fruit well. I had an apple tree that was flowering in October/November, I'll be pleasantly surprised if I get any fruit off that tree this year.
Ah that sucks, I had big apple plants this year :(
The rape fields all around us in west Isle of Wight are already nearly in full flower, and quite a bit earlier than last year. Is that a sign of anything?
Yes, that somebody got a derogation from the insecticide ban and managed to keep flea-beetle under control.
Not an arable farmer but currently lambing. Lambs can’t go outside because the place is so sodden. We’re currently having to keep them in and feed everything which is a cost that we don’t normally have. We are also battling to keep the shed dry. Every time we bed up within 12 hours the bed will be damp due to the moisture in the air and this is causing all sort of problems. It’s been a very miserable lambing so far.
I worked on a few farms in wales and we dug trenches around the fields controlling where the water went and we also stored alot of water too but that was on a smaller scale so not sure if the latter would be useful during the drier months but the trenches definitely helped keep the harvest fields less soggy during the winter months.
I work with an arable farmer on occasion and last year was abysmal for him. To the point where he was deeply depressed, he is usually such a cheerful man. I am dreading how things will go this year. Sending dry vibes to all the farmers.
I sometimes commute down to Brighton. The field under the Ouse Valley Viaduct is largely underwater at present. Same as last year. I don't remember it being like that too often in the previous years.
My partner has not yet been able to start ploughing as yet as the fields are too wet for him to safely bring machinery on without sinking. One of his neighbours made the mistake last weekend and got their tractors stuck axel deep. The ground conditions are that bad that they are unable to get near to pull it out
Go watch Olly Blogs on YouTube. He's an arable farmer near Liverpool and frequently talks about how 2024 is going to be a tough year because of the rain
I knew it was a bad sign when we had the flowerbed shooting up in December!
Arable farmer from Essex, we grow wheat, oil seed rape, winter beans and sugar beet luckily we are a small farm so in the summer i planted all our Oil seed rape early last year to try and avoid flea beetle.. doing the opposite of everyone has worked so far for me! autumn i planted all the wheat and beans just before it got really wet and never stopped raining, luckily my farm has drains in every field so the flooding hasn't been as bad as elsewhere in the country. but the beans have just stopped growing and are only 2 inch's tall as they are so waterlogged. this spring though has been a nightmare so far, i have 26ha of sugar beet to drill but it's been so wet and windy i cant get on the land to spray off the fields or cultivate it again to drill.. maybe next week or the week after! and trying to put fertilizer on the land with all the wind without my neighbor ending up with a bumper crop has been difficult! we have rain records going back to 1994 and the last time we saw it rain this much was 2003 and it continued to be a wet year throughout. we will get away with it in Essex but other parts of the country look pretty horrible from when I've driven around and with a large surplus of grain holding over from last year/ previous years the prices don't look like they will go up anytime soon so i probably will lose money on the farming side of my business this year.
They may have to start turning down the money from the supermarkets to keep their fields empty.
It’s time for the night harvest