Farming is often at the mercy of extreme and changeable weather and the floods of 2015 were marked not just by the extent of flooding to homes, property and agricultural land but also by the damage to infrastructure caused by a succession of storms bringing heavy rain.
The NFU recognises that farming has a key role to play in flood management.
Where farmers provide a service in mitigating flood risk to help protect others however, this service must be a coherent, planned component of total catchment management for which farmers must be fairly compensated. In short, the government’s strategy to manage future flood risk must be to plan, protect and pay.
The Flooding Manifesto sets out our clear policy asks and action for government and others to follow to help mitigate flood risk in the future.