Tough winter ahead for Shropshire organic farmers

Organic farmers in Shropshire are facing a tough winter after the unusually dry summer sparked a shortage of animal feed.

It means the cost of organic produce could rise in the shops as many farmers are forced to buy in or produce extra animal feed at short notice.

The long spell of dry weather in Shropshire has caused many organic producers of meats and dairy products to use up their reserves of winter animal feed much earlier than expected.

However, the problems facing Shropshire farmers are not shared by those elsewhere, according to Pimhill Farm's Ian Anderson, who farms the pioneering organic site near Shrewsbury.

He said: "It's not the same everywhere you go. In Somerset they have more silage than they know what to do with.

"But in the north of Scotland they are still harvesting because it's been so wet they haven't been able to do it any sooner."

But Mr Anderson stressed: "In Shropshire, it's a desperate situation and we've been feeding 10 tonnes of silage a day to our animals since the beginning of August.

"We fear we will not have enough forage to see us through the winter, so we are going to have to buy forage in."

He added: "It's entirely down to the weather and I would think we have had one of the driest summers for a long time.

"Here we've had about one-third of the rainfall we usually get. Everyone says it's worse than 1976."

But elsewhere in the county, organic farmers have escaped the worst of the problems.

Ben Hollins, who has about 150 cows, 200 sheep and 50 pigs at Fordhall Farm, near Market Drayton, said his farm looked set to escape the worst of the dry weather's impact.

He said: "The dry weather is an issue for organic farmers, but not just organic farmers as others have been affected too.

"This year there are low grass supplies and many farms have used their supplies early as it's been so dry.

"But we've always tried to produce a surplus of feed in previous years, so we have extra for this winter.

"We've got plenty of feed for this winter and our farm shop shouldn't be affected too much."

He added: "You never know what the weather will be like, so we've tried to make extra every year we've been producing beef, pork and lamb."

By Tom Johannsen