AMIDST the joy and bustle of local agricultural shows returning, there was a new concern on farmers’ minds - drought, writes FUW president Glyn Roberts.

Yet again this year, we are hitting historical records, but not of the type you’d want.

Whilst at the Anglesey Show, we heard that the Frogwy river at Bodffordd in Anglesey had reached its lowest recorded flow for July on record.

During July, Wales as a whole received just 56 per cent of its expected rainfall, with catchments ranging from 29 per cent for Valleys and Vale Glamorgan and 74 per cent in Carmarthenshire.

Naturally, we have been gathering information from our members on how this is affecting them and their businesses, and feeding this information back to the Welsh Government to encourage provision of support.

Some have reported that their silage is a third down on normal, others are having to creep feed lambs and buying in hay, some are feeding their winter fodder now, or struggling to establish new crops, whilst those in the uplands are seeing the fire risk on heathlands increase daily.

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Whilst it is important for the industry to be able to arrange emergency meetings in these situations, we feel it is important for Governments to be proactive on this issue, as opposed to continually reactive.

We know climate change will increase the likelihood of droughts and extreme weather, therefore Governments should plan accordingly - food and water security is not an issue to be taken lightly.

Back at the Royal Welsh in July, we launched a five-point plan for UK Governments to mitigate the impacts of current and future global emergencies. 

Whilst our land may be becoming less resilient to climate change and biodiversity pressures - farmers are a resilient bunch, and are looking proactively at the situation themselves.

Discussions at the shows about the issue highlighted various approaches - from reseeding deeper rooting grass species into new leys, capturing and storing rainwater on farms, adapting grazing rotations to keep stock on shadier pastures to reduce water demand, and changing to night time feeding for dairy cows.

But some are having to make harder financial decisions now, such as reducing stock or purchasing more fodder ahead of winter, and thinking carefully about winter feed budgeting.

Evidently there will be less winter fodder available in general after reduced fertiliser applications due to inflated prices. 

However, we must still recognise our global responsibility as food producers in light of dwindling water resources.

Increasing desertification is happening across the world, with far lower rainfall than our record low levels.

Here in Wales with our generally consistent rainfall, coupled with our high organic carbon levels (organic carbon in healthy soil can store up to 10 times its weight in water), we have a crucial role to play in producing sustainable food in the future.

Global food responsibility and environmental pressures aside, I hope you can all manage to enjoy the sun at various agricultural shows and with family in the coming week!