Water strategies in the spotlight as farmers grapple with dry spring weather |
About 100 farmers and industry professionals joined a tour of the Stody Estate, near Holt, organised for members of Norfolk-based agricultural purchasing group AF.
They heard insights into the estate's cropping strategy, its integration of livestock grazing, and its environmental, woodland and deer management activities.
But the main topic was the extensive water management strategy which underpins the farming and environment operations.
Stody Estate managing director Charlie MacNicol led farmers on a tour of his family's land in the Glaven Valley, near Holt (Image: Chris Hill)
This includes investing in reservoirs, formed by the gravel and sand extraction quarries which helped fund their development. An abstraction licence allows water to be taken from the River Glaven during high flows, to be stored and used to irrigate premium food crops in the summer.
Charlie MacNicol, the third generation of his family to manage the estate, said this approach had put the business in a more resilient position for the future.
But he added that the estate had emptied all of its water resources, from two reservoirs and two boreholes, in two of the last five years - proving the continued need to optimise water as concerns grow over stressed crops amid the latest dry spring.
"It's a silly game, farming, because we're only one big rainfall event away from being unconcerned," he said. "If last Saturday night's rainfall was anything like 10-12mm, that would have probably bought us another couple of weeks. But we didn't get it, so we are concerned.
"The longer this dry spell goes on, it's going to be a problem.
"Looking further forward, are we now in a cycle of dry springs? I grew up with April showers, but our weather stats show that April is often the driest month of the........