Somerset farmer's land flooded since autumn with 'no end in sight'

A farmer in Somerset has said he fears more rain this winter, with many of his fields underwater since October.

Mark Humphry is a dairy farmer at Isle Brewers near Taunton. His farm produces milk which is used by Somerset cheesemakers Wyke Farms.

However, the large amount of flooding he has experienced means much of his grazing land is likely to be delayed this year.

His family has farmed at the site for generations. He says they are used to life on the Somerset Levels but this has been exceptional.

He said: "We've been here for 140 years. I don't think I can remember a winter quite as wet or where it's gone on for as long as this.

"We've had unprecedented amounts of rain. Last year was a very tricky spring for us. Our cows grazed from about the middle of April.

"The year before that, as a comparison, was a very early spring and we actually had our cows out at grass on 31 January.

"The difference between those two dates for us was over 400 tonnes of silage, which is the grass that we've packed away for the winter."

Flooding does not just impact grazing land for his 400-strong herd of cows, he is also worried about blocked roads causing problems for staff and contractors getting in and the lorries getting the milk out.

He said: "It's very demoralising. If we can't get the tanker in, we have to pull the plug on the tank and that milk then goes into our slurry store and we get no income for that.

"I think we're all getting quite demoralised. We've probably now had eight weeks of fairly wet weather.

"Hopefully now we'll start getting some lighter evenings and we'll get a bit of feel-good factor and we can think spring's around the corner.

"But we're expecting a lot of heavy rain again today, we've been warned that there'll be a flood again tomorrow. So at the moment, there's no end to it."