'Exceptional rainfall means we can't plant crops'

Farmers are being left unable to plant crops due to the heavy rainfall experienced in the last month, one has told the BBC.

Graham Bowsher, who runs Field Barn Farm in Beenham, Berkshire, said the "horrendous" weather had made his job "very stressful".

Nearby Reading experienced its wettest September on record, with 154mm (6.1in) of rain falling across the month according to the town's university.

The National Farmers' Union (NFU) said the "exceptionally wet" weather had caused a "perfect storm".

Mr Bowsher told the BBC: "The weather this year has been pretty horrendous - we seemed to go from extremely wet to boiling hot and back to extremely wet."

"It made this year's harvest yield lower than normal, it's affected the milling quality in all the wheat - so there isn't as much milling wheat in Britain at the moment," he said.

"Then we've come to this autumn and it's incredibly wet, which has stopped us from planting the crops so far - which is incredibly unusual this time of year."

He added that the "absolutely astonishing" amount of rain had left all of his fields waterlogged.

"We've just had so much rain all in one go, so that makes it very very difficult to run a farm and keep the business going in the way it should do."

"It nearly grinds your whole business to a halt."

Dr Rob Thomas, from the University of Reading, said the amount of rainfall which fell in September was 8mm (0.3in) more than the previous record from 1974.

Nathan Boyd, who works for the NFU across Berkshire, Buckinghamshire and Oxfordshire, said some farmers had been unable to finish their harvest due to the rainfall.

"They're not just battling trying to get seeds in the ground for next winter, they're still trying to get this year's crops out," he said.

He added that the weather over the last 12 months was having a big effect on what crops farmers choose to grow.

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