Farmers' warning as food crops lost to floods

Farmers are "praying" there will be no more downpours as they struggle to meet demand amid widespread flooding.

Fruit and vegetable yields have fallen by about 5% across the UK, with carrots down more than 7% over the past 12 months, BBC figures show.

This has resulted in more carrots being imported, with prices rising by an average of about 40% since last year.

Market gardener Phil Collins, from Bromham, near Devizes, said: "There is not going to be enough food grown in this country if things go on like it is."

He added: "It's been difficult, we had three inches [of flood water] last Monday and it really messed it [yields] up.

"It's the first time in my entire life that we have not had enough spuds out, we've normally got quite a lot of spuds in the farm shop, and we didn't have any to sell."

Mr Collins, who has been working in the industry for 50 years, said he watches the forecast regularly in a bid to plan around the weather.

Contractors are waiting for his next big crop, but he said it is "too wet" to harvest the vegetables right now.

"We do what we can. We work with the weather, we work with what conditions we've got.

"You do your best, that is all you ever do, if you are growing vegetables, if you are in farming, you've got to be a half-full man, not a half-empty," he added.

'Devastated'

Seven counties – Bedfordshire, Berkshire, Buckinghamshire, Gloucestershire, Northamptonshire, Oxfordshire and Wiltshire – all recorded more than three times their average September rainfall, the Met Office said.

Southern England had its wettest September since 1918, and its third wettest in the records dating back to 1836.

Chair of the British Carrot Growers' Association Roger Hobson said that farmers were feeling "devastated".

"Here on my farm we lost about 12% of our crop, which is about 3,000 tonnes. This is typical of the carrot growers in the country," he said.

"We are just praying that is doesn't happen again."

He explained that flood water runs to the lowest part of the field, which makes the "vegetables rot".

Scientists have said extreme weather events are becoming more frequent and intense as a result of climate change.

For every 1C rise in average temperature, the atmosphere can hold about 7% more moisture, external.

This can result in more droplets and heavier rainfall, sometimes in a shorter space of time and over a smaller area.