The last few months have been nothing but eventful when discussing the interesting weather patterns happening around the World and how it has been having a huge impact on farmers everywhere.
From the flash snow storm in October in the Mid-West that killed thousands of beef cattle, to the worse drought California has seen in a century leaving farmers scrambling for feed, to the record amounts of snow hitting large parts of Canada and the USA causing barn roofs to collapse, to the heavy rains causing severe flooding in the UK resulting in lost livestock and feed. Mother Nature has brought on some intense challenges to the agricultural industry and although control on the weather is out of our hands, we can support each other.
Thank you to Jeff Nielsen for sharing these photos from Nielsen Farms in Lacombe Alberta.
To read about the flooding in the UK and how you can help please click here.
To read about the massive snow storm that hit South Dakota early October click here and check out the Ranchers Relief Fund page on Facebook to see what people are doing to help out.
Extreme weather events have really put the pressure on the importance of ensuring everything is done to protect agricultural land and enable farmers to meet future food production challenges. Each country has its own Agricultural policies, some providing more support for their food producers than others. However, the food chain in it’s entirety, needs to work together to ensure agricultural policy and regulation is working towards these goals. Whether it be in the USA, Canada, the UK or anywhere for that matter “shorter supply chains, fairer distribution of margin, better information sharing across food businesses and a joined up approach to managing volatility and risk will give farmers the confidence to invest in their businesses and help safeguard the longer term resilience of food production” (NFU President Peter Kendall).