:00:25. > :00:29.Good evening. Welcome to a special programme looking at the
:00:29. > :00:39.extraordinary weather of 2012. It has been a year like we have never
:00:39. > :00:43.seen before. We are finding out why we can expect more to -- got the
:00:43. > :00:47.scene in 2013. What does it mean for us here in the region now and
:00:47. > :00:51.in the future. The British are well known for talking about the weather
:00:51. > :00:56.and and 2012, we have probably talked about it more are than ever.
:00:56. > :01:04.It was difficult to ignore. Here is a reminder of the Year of wild
:01:04. > :01:09.weather. It started with storms and gales.
:01:09. > :01:16.De QE2 Bridge was closed until mid- afternoon due to high winds,
:01:16. > :01:20.causing long delays. And then a more rain. Traveller's
:01:20. > :01:30.conditions were treacherous. Five surprisingly, this turned out
:01:30. > :01:31.
:01:31. > :01:35.to be the driest January since 19 - - since 1921. And it got warmer.
:01:35. > :01:43.Snowdrops coming through in winter end yet we can already be facing a
:01:43. > :01:51.hosepipe ban in the summer. It is certainly a possibility, etc. They
:01:51. > :01:56.drier weather continues, that we could see hose pipe bans.
:01:56. > :02:04.Ivan great day like today the rain is not falling where we need it.
:02:04. > :02:11.East Anglia remains the only party of the UK which remains in drought.
:02:11. > :02:16.We got snow. And the coldest night in 30 years. Some drivers simply
:02:16. > :02:23.abandon their cars and walk home. Schools across the region were
:02:23. > :02:29.closed. Fog was the main problem for drivers. For others, it was a
:02:29. > :02:35.chance to wrap up warm and have fun. When the snow melted, we were back
:02:35. > :02:38.with the drought. Our rivers were dangerously low. Seen, oxygen
:02:38. > :02:43.levels will plummet. It is time to act.
:02:43. > :02:49.This year rescues are not unusual, but you would expect them to be
:02:49. > :02:54.carried out in July or early August -- Fischer rescues. Two have been
:02:54. > :02:59.in March is unprecedented. Our reservoirs needed rain, the
:02:59. > :03:04.situation was getting serious. Water had now become precious, a
:03:04. > :03:11.hosepipe ban was announced to begin in April.
:03:11. > :03:15.This company in Stevenage sell water butts on the Web. Sales have
:03:15. > :03:20.increased dramatically. Now that the hosepipe ban is eminent people
:03:20. > :03:26.are realising that they need water butts.
:03:26. > :03:36.How long will it go on for? That is any one's guess. The one two
:03:36. > :03:37.
:03:37. > :03:44.decades ago lasted 481 days. have had the driest period far many
:03:44. > :03:54.years. The drought continued. We needed
:03:54. > :04:00.rain. And then it came. This was the wettest April in more than 100
:04:00. > :04:07.years. Yet, the region was still in drought. No signs of the rain
:04:07. > :04:11.letting up. Manly in April we would expect 45-50 mm of rain. Some
:04:11. > :04:16.places are run target to have double that. This rain makes the
:04:16. > :04:24.hosepipe ban Lucan nonsense? It is helping us, because it is
:04:24. > :04:30.suppressing demand. With no let up from the rain,
:04:30. > :04:34.Easter Bank Holiday was a knock out. -- washout. It really is a demand
:04:34. > :04:41.going. People's spirits are low. We'd just won the Sunday Star
:04:41. > :04:46.Shining so that people will feel a bit happier and start enjoying the
:04:46. > :04:51.sea front -- and we want the sun have to start shining.
:04:51. > :04:55.Trees up rooted, debris strewn around. It took them many tornado
:04:56. > :05:04.just seconds to cost around �100,000 worth of damage.
:05:04. > :05:13.And then, more rain. If in fact, one month's work -- one
:05:13. > :05:22.month's worth in just an hour. The same as what is is now an
:05:22. > :05:30.inland sea. -- the famous are washes.
:05:30. > :05:36.The poor little spice just cannot grow. -- potatoes.
:05:36. > :05:41.This year, the Suffolk Show was abandoned. They say this
:05:41. > :05:45.abandonment could cost then several hundred 1,000 pounds.
:05:45. > :05:51.The recent downpour, combined with the showers have scuppered nine
:05:51. > :05:58.months of preparation. They show usually generates between 15 and
:05:58. > :06:02.�20,000. Helping to support a young farmers. It is a high price to pay
:06:02. > :06:05.for the great British weather, which once again has a lot to
:06:05. > :06:11.answer for. For those of us looking forward to
:06:11. > :06:17.a summer holiday, we got the wettest July on record.
:06:17. > :06:22.Wattisham, rainfall was up by 155 %. In Bedford it is pretty much the
:06:22. > :06:29.same, but in Marham it is getting on for a double.
:06:29. > :06:35.Then at last came the Sun. The country's warmest day of the year
:06:35. > :06:39.is recorded in Cavendish, Suffolk. It was 32.4 degrees in the village
:06:39. > :06:46.on Saturday. Dot his place in the country on the hottest day of the
:06:46. > :06:53.year so far. -- the hottest place. We have brought in extra staff to
:06:53. > :06:59.cover. Pretty hard for Britain, it is fantastic. Of far too hot.
:06:59. > :07:05.At the V Festival there was no need for Wellington boots this year, the
:07:05. > :07:09.crowds look for a shade as the sun shone on.
:07:09. > :07:14.Many parts of the reading experience to work 30 degrees.
:07:14. > :07:19.Hotter than Honolulu in Hawaii. The good weather lasted into September,
:07:19. > :07:24.but not for long enough. But there was 21 % more sunshine than normal,
:07:24. > :07:27.it was also the coldest September in the region far more than a
:07:28. > :07:37.decade. October gave us a sprinkling of
:07:38. > :07:44.
:07:44. > :07:49.hail, more rain and more floods. It just got worse.
:07:49. > :07:53.What are you it has been. I am here in Cavendish in Suffolk, where one
:07:53. > :07:59.weekend in August we have that highest recorded temperature in the
:07:59. > :08:04.country, 32.4 degrees Celsius, around 90 degrees Fahrenheit, and a
:08:04. > :08:13.real contrast with today. We know how the weather affected as you in
:08:14. > :08:18.the East during 2012, we know what happened, but do we know why?
:08:18. > :08:28.In the spring of 2012, England was dry. Reservoirs were dangerously
:08:28. > :08:29.
:08:29. > :08:33.low, much of the country was in drought. It is a very serious
:08:33. > :08:37.situation, our underground sources are very well.
:08:37. > :08:42.It seemed that the we think that could save us would be a highly
:08:42. > :08:52.unusual long spell of heavy rain. But you should be careful what you
:08:52. > :08:53.
:08:53. > :08:59.wish for. The worst drought since 1976 was followed by the wettest
:08:59. > :09:05.April to June on record. I am going to find out what the scientists say
:09:05. > :09:13.are the reasons for this. I have acquit myself with a huge blow, to
:09:13. > :09:19.put things into perspective it -- be equipped myself.
:09:20. > :09:25.-- with a huge globe. I'm going to meet those who were affected
:09:25. > :09:31.explain to them why it happened. First stop, North Tyneside, hit by
:09:31. > :09:35.a flash flood in June. It was really so real. You were looking
:09:35. > :09:41.out of your window and just seeing a man in at two new going down the
:09:41. > :09:48.street. -- in a boat going down the street.
:09:48. > :09:52.I have come up to the area to explain to people the reason for
:09:52. > :09:58.this. To do that, you have to look at things with that global view,
:09:58. > :10:05.which is why I have this year. In particular, we have to talk about
:10:05. > :10:11.this. This is a jet stream. It is fast moving the air that carries
:10:11. > :10:19.the weather systems. It is the dividing line -- line between the
:10:19. > :10:25.colder ear and a warrior in the south. -- Dewar might air in the
:10:25. > :10:29.south. The reason it is important is because the jet stream guides
:10:29. > :10:34.and carry storms across the Atlantic to the UK. It is the first
:10:34. > :10:38.thing that determines the UK weather. The jet stream pushes bad
:10:38. > :10:46.weather towards us? But the fact that the jet stream
:10:46. > :10:52.excess does not explain canoeing on the streets of North Tyneside.
:10:52. > :11:02.I know people in West Sussex who want to know more.
:11:02. > :11:10.I am on my way to a place called Racal Chambis. One night in June,
:11:10. > :11:16.they had a month's worth of rain. The Sussex beach holiday village on
:11:16. > :11:20.the coast it took the brunt. I got called in the early hours of Monday
:11:20. > :11:23.morning and we had to start evacuating people.
:11:23. > :11:27.Let us speak to the workers of the holiday park about the fact that
:11:27. > :11:32.there is a pattern to the way that the jet stream normally behaves
:11:32. > :11:37.across the year. In winter, it is normally here, running across the
:11:37. > :11:44.Atlantic towards the UK. We expect to get some spells of rain in the
:11:44. > :11:48.winter. But this time things were different, so says this expert from
:11:48. > :11:52.the University of Reading. In 2012, the jet stream was much further
:11:52. > :11:59.south than we would have expected. What it meant was that the storms
:11:59. > :12:05.that MAM we hit the UK -- that normally hit the UK were not
:12:05. > :12:09.hitting. It was much drier. He if you do not have the Jetstream
:12:09. > :12:17.carrion wet weather systems to the UK, as it should have been in the
:12:17. > :12:24.winter, we end up drier. That is why we had so much fear
:12:24. > :12:30.about A, and what would happen if we had a third dry winter. -- about
:12:30. > :12:34.role -- about drought. In the summer, we be normally
:12:35. > :12:39.expect the jet stream to the north of the UK. That means that we are
:12:39. > :12:47.in the warm weather. We get spells of lovely warm sunshine, that is
:12:47. > :12:51.the plan. But we know that that did not happen this year. The stance
:12:51. > :12:59.and Normally missiles were too far south and it hit the UK -- the
:12:59. > :13:03.stars that were normally hitting us. All year long, our weather has not
:13:03. > :13:10.fitted the normal pattern. Basically, the Jetstream was in the
:13:11. > :13:16.long place -- wrong place, and it got stuck. Do the scientists have
:13:16. > :13:22.many theories about why it got stuck? After a night of intense
:13:22. > :13:27.rain in the village here in Plymouth, this man found himself
:13:27. > :13:36.trapped in his house. I was ringing the emergency services just trying
:13:36. > :13:43.to get help. What the villagers want to know his best. Why was the
:13:43. > :13:47.jet stream in the wrong position? Very good question. I wanted over
:13:47. > :13:51.towards North America. I want to take you to the sea here, where we
:13:51. > :13:55.know that the temperature of the sea here is higher than normal and
:13:56. > :14:01.has been for quite a while. The theory is that because the sea is
:14:01. > :14:08.warm my than normal, the jet stream does not get that Russian art, and
:14:08. > :14:12.will end up further south and take So, if you influence the origin of
:14:12. > :14:16.the jet stream, it's a bit like waving a long stick. You can have a
:14:16. > :14:23.big effect at the end of the jet stream moving it away or onto the
:14:23. > :14:28.UK. And the interesting thing is, we've seen this before in the 1950s.
:14:28. > :14:31.Where does all the bad weather come from? The North Atlantic sea
:14:31. > :14:37.temperature went up in a similar way, and at the same time there was
:14:37. > :14:40.a corresponding series of wet summers. That is one theory.
:14:40. > :14:43.Another theory relates to Arctic sea ice. You may have seen the
:14:43. > :14:52.reports this year about the fact that the sea ice melted to a degree
:14:52. > :14:56.that we've never seen before it was that low. One of the suggestions is
:14:56. > :14:59.that change in the amount of Arctic sea ice has led to shifts in the
:14:59. > :15:03.position of the jet stream and then to changes in the kind of weather
:15:03. > :15:08.we get in the UK. But, of course, what we really want to know is what
:15:08. > :15:12.are the summers going to be like in the future? Well it depends which
:15:12. > :15:15.of those two theories has the most effect. It's the relationship
:15:15. > :15:19.between those two and which is strongest which will determine what
:15:19. > :15:23.happens next. But in principle, if the North Atlantic warming reverses,
:15:23. > :15:27.then it could be that we flip into the opposite regime and have hot
:15:27. > :15:32.dry summers in a decade or two from now. But what if it's the second
:15:32. > :15:37.theory - the melting of the Arctic ice - which is the dominant factor?
:15:37. > :15:41.What happens then? We think that the decline in Arctic sea ice is
:15:41. > :15:44.part of man-made climate change. So, as the globe warms up the amount of
:15:44. > :15:46.Arctic sea ice is just declining. And if it's that which is
:15:46. > :15:49.dominating the position of the jet stream then we're going into
:15:49. > :15:52.uncharted waters and we're kind of going into a position where the
:15:52. > :15:57.weather that we are experiencing in the summer may be starting to
:15:57. > :16:02.change. What a year of weather it has been and the answers lie well
:16:02. > :16:05.beyond our shores. Now if the North Atlantic cools down we might get
:16:05. > :16:15.our sunny summers back. But if it is all down to the melting Arctic
:16:15. > :16:16.
:16:16. > :16:22.sea ice we're just going to have to Whatever caused it, 2012's year of
:16:22. > :16:26.wild weather had a huge effect on our region. It ruined our holidays.
:16:26. > :16:30.We put on sun cream one day and put up umbrellas the next. It made a
:16:30. > :16:36.mess of our ponds, our allotments and our gardens. It even affected
:16:36. > :16:39.what we eat. I want to find out how the bad weather has affected some
:16:39. > :16:43.of our region's best known traditional food products so I've
:16:43. > :16:47.come here to Tiptree, famous for its jam. Now, East Anglia grows
:16:47. > :16:51.some of the best fruit in the country, which is then turned into
:16:51. > :17:00.this. We also produce some of the finest wheat, to make the bread to
:17:00. > :17:04.This 1,000 acre farm at St Osyth in Essex grows specialist milling
:17:04. > :17:07.wheat for making bread and it is hard to believe but, in 2011, it
:17:07. > :17:16.featured in the Guinness Book of Records for being the driest farm
:17:16. > :17:19.in the country! What a difference a few months can make. Guy, parts of
:17:19. > :17:23.your field look like a river. This must have been a very challenging
:17:23. > :17:26.year. Yeah, I suppose we're the least wet farm now rather than the
:17:27. > :17:30.driest farm. And your family has been farming here for... Is it
:17:30. > :17:34.three generations? Yes, three generations here and several more
:17:34. > :17:42.on land about six miles to the east of where we are now. And, yeah, my
:17:42. > :17:46.grandfather could probably tell me of troubled times in the past. But
:17:46. > :17:49.I doubt if he could find it as bad as it is now. I'm trying to
:17:49. > :17:54.establish a crop in this field now. We have been reasonably successful
:17:54. > :17:57.but we have still got these bear traps. We still have to farm around.
:17:57. > :18:01.When we were combining around this bit, we got the combine stuck. And
:18:01. > :18:04.that was for the 6th time. I've been farming for several years now
:18:04. > :18:07.and I've never known having to pull combines out. And you pride
:18:07. > :18:10.yourself on a certain standard of wheat. We always try to grow class
:18:10. > :18:15.one, grade A milling wheat because we have this dry climate here it
:18:15. > :18:19.enables us to usually harvest the grain in pristine condition. And I
:18:19. > :18:22.would put myself up against any farmer in the world on the quality
:18:22. > :18:25.of my wheat. But on a year like 2012, where it's been pretty
:18:25. > :18:28.relentless with the rain through harvest, we've not produced the top
:18:28. > :18:37.quality like we normally do. My wheat will still go for bread-
:18:37. > :18:43.Guy's wheat is sold to a grain merchant in Harlow, who must assess
:18:43. > :18:45.its quality before selling it on. The Home Counties here, within a 70
:18:45. > :18:49.mile radius of Cambridge is producing the majority of the UK
:18:49. > :18:51.wheat crop. And the nature of this horrible weather has meant our
:18:51. > :18:59.prime market, particularly for export for human consumption, has
:18:59. > :19:03.now been downgraded to almost feed quality this year. The actual
:19:03. > :19:06.impact of the weather has meant the grains are far less dense. The
:19:06. > :19:11.amount of end product you're going to get from this particular
:19:11. > :19:15.material is going to much lower than they would usually expect.
:19:15. > :19:20.quality of the flour for making bread depends on the density of the
:19:20. > :19:26.grain and the 2012 crop didn't make the grade. We contract on the basis
:19:26. > :19:29.of a 72 kilo, which is a measure of grain density. This year, this
:19:29. > :19:32.material growers are selling to us well in advance, 72 kilo material,
:19:32. > :19:37.they're ending up with material 65, 66 kilos. And it's very difficult
:19:37. > :19:44.finding markets for this volume of this low quality material this year.
:19:44. > :19:46.The grain ends up at the millers. Master millers, Marriages have been
:19:46. > :19:51.producing quality flour here in Chelmsford, since 1824. But they
:19:51. > :19:54.won't want a year like 2012 again. I think it is certainly the worst
:19:55. > :19:59.I've known and probably one of the worst ones we've had in the history
:19:59. > :20:02.of the firm. The wheat that we've had is very much thinner than you
:20:02. > :20:08.would normally expect, which means it's much harder to get the white
:20:08. > :20:11.flour out of the middle of the grain. We've also has a lot more
:20:11. > :20:15.rubbish to take out of the wheat, so it means it's much more
:20:15. > :20:21.difficult to maintain the quality. We have fairly extensive testing
:20:21. > :20:25.facilities so we do analysis on the wheat and on the flour. We also
:20:25. > :20:30.have a test bakery, and a baker who looks at it and sees how it bakes
:20:30. > :20:34.so we have to keep that the same. Because our customers expect the
:20:34. > :20:40.quality to be the same week in week out, year in year out and that's
:20:40. > :20:43.what we have to do. What we are finding is that we're having a lot
:20:43. > :20:47.more calls to farmers to say we're very sorry we can't pay you the
:20:47. > :20:53.full price because this wheat isn't as good as it's supposed to be.
:20:53. > :20:59.That has gone up a lot. Back on the farm, the bad weather has given Guy
:20:59. > :21:05.other concerns. So, Guy, you've noticed the weather hasn't just
:21:05. > :21:07.taken its toll on the crops but the wildlife too. It affects everything
:21:07. > :21:12.Julie, we're quite keen on conserving barn owls on this farm
:21:12. > :21:15.and you can see the nest boxes in the distance there. But the story
:21:15. > :21:18.with the wet is, the incessant rain makes the level of the water in the
:21:18. > :21:21.ditches rise, that drowns the bank and the field voles because it's
:21:21. > :21:25.higher than usual, the lack of field voles effects the barn owls
:21:25. > :21:29.because that's their food source, so when we come to ring the chicks
:21:29. > :21:32.in the barn owl boxes to see if we've had a good year or bad year,
:21:32. > :21:41.we find that there are very few chicks because the barn owls have
:21:41. > :21:44.had a bad year because of lack of food. But it's not all bad news,
:21:44. > :21:48.because you had a very special visitor. Yeah. Well, we had one
:21:48. > :21:51.great ray of sunshine in April, we had an osprey arrive on the farm,
:21:51. > :21:55.which I've never seen before, was treat to see and of course the
:21:55. > :22:03.osprey is known as the fish eagle, so whether it thought my farm had
:22:03. > :22:06.turned into a river, I don't know. But it seemed like it at the time.
:22:06. > :22:09.I've noticed it's not just arable farmers like me who've had a
:22:09. > :22:14.difficult time this year, even top fruit growers, even in my little
:22:14. > :22:19.orchard here you can see the fruit hasn't set very well. There are
:22:19. > :22:22.very few apples, and all that just makes for a very difficult year.
:22:22. > :22:26.Not far from Guy, at Tiptree in Essex, there are fields and fields
:22:26. > :22:35.of fruit. Here, the Wilkin family have been growing fruit to make jam
:22:35. > :22:38.since 1865. Today, Wilkin and Sons export their jam across the world.
:22:38. > :22:43.Chris, this is very impressive. Strawberry plants as far as the eye
:22:43. > :22:47.can see. How much fruit do you grow here? On the farm, as a whole, we
:22:47. > :22:52.grow about 300 acres, that's spread over 5 different sites. About 120
:22:52. > :22:55.acres of that 300 acres is specifically down to strawberries.
:22:55. > :22:58.We've had everything thrown at us this year, I mean we started off
:22:58. > :23:01.through January, February, March and it was exceptionally dry and we
:23:01. > :23:04.were extremely concerned at that point in time about how we were
:23:04. > :23:12.going to make our extremely limited water supplies last all the way
:23:12. > :23:16.through the summer. But what a contrast it's been since then. It
:23:16. > :23:18.started raining in April and it essentially hasn't stopped since.
:23:18. > :23:21.Our strawberries for jamming are traditional old English, June
:23:21. > :23:30.bearing, which crop essentially through the middle of June into the
:23:31. > :23:33.middle of July. They have their main flowering period through May.
:23:33. > :23:41.And of course during May it was exceptionally wet and it was
:23:41. > :23:44.exceptionally cold. As I understand it bees don't like to fly below 13
:23:44. > :23:47.degrees and we had some very cold temperatures during the month and
:23:47. > :23:51.as a result we've suffered very poor pollination on a lot of our
:23:51. > :23:53.crops. Our aim is to be self- sufficient, but if you have a
:23:53. > :23:56.catastrophic crop failure as we've had this year, we have no
:23:56. > :24:01.alternative other than to go and try and source alternative supplies
:24:01. > :24:04.of fruit either regionally or nationally as first preference. If
:24:04. > :24:10.we can't find the fruit that we need within the UK, then we've got
:24:10. > :24:14.to go further afield, as a last resort. So, has this made you think
:24:14. > :24:18.about the way you go about growing your crops? Yeah, certainly when
:24:18. > :24:23.you take a hit as big as the hit we've taken as a result of the
:24:23. > :24:26.issues we've faced this year. We've got to look at alternative
:24:26. > :24:30.mechanisms for trying to ensure our production is more consistent year
:24:30. > :24:32.to year. We've taken a decision that we will start to protect much
:24:32. > :24:38.more of the fruit that we're growing for the factory, which
:24:38. > :24:41.traditionally has been grown in an open field situation. So, there
:24:41. > :24:46.will be more poly tunnels like this? So, there will be more poly
:24:46. > :24:49.tunnels like this. Yes, yes. And is there anything else you can do?
:24:49. > :24:54.don't think there is. With everything you do in farming, we
:24:54. > :24:59.are at the mercy of the weather. This is the Mulberry orchard, the
:24:59. > :25:03.very first orchard to be planted by the Wilkin family. And the bees
:25:03. > :25:05.have been pollinating these trees for around 150 years. But in 2012
:25:06. > :25:13.there was simply less fruit, because the bad weather changed the
:25:13. > :25:16.way the bees went about their So, how important is the role of
:25:16. > :25:22.your bees at Tiptree? Well, without the pollination, no fruit I'm
:25:22. > :25:26.afraid. Well, we can see it's still pretty wet and muddy here. Yes, it
:25:26. > :25:29.is. The weather has caused you some real problems this year. All sorts
:25:29. > :25:32.through the year. We had a fine period in March. Colonies thought
:25:32. > :25:35.it was spring and used a lot of their stores up, building up,
:25:35. > :25:40.thinking that the weather was going to continue. Unfortunately, it
:25:40. > :25:43.didn't. And it's not only the weather at the time that the
:25:43. > :25:47.pollination is necessary, it's the build-up of the colony. They need
:25:47. > :25:50.to get lots of pollen and stores in so the queen can lay eggs and the
:25:50. > :25:55.colony builds up. It didn't build up, this year. And then the rain
:25:55. > :25:58.arrived. Right, so in April, we had colonies not as strong as normal,
:25:58. > :26:01.they had the rain so they couldn't fly anyway. And of course they were
:26:01. > :26:05.in trouble and of course the trees were in trouble because the flowers
:26:05. > :26:08.were there and if nobody is there to transfer the pollen from one
:26:08. > :26:11.flower to another, no fruit. Bees have been here 30 million years but
:26:11. > :26:14.in pollination time these Bees didn't do as good a job as they
:26:14. > :26:24.normally do and as far as service to Wilkins they unfortunately only
:26:24. > :26:27.did the best they could, which Guy's wheat crop this year wasn't
:26:27. > :26:33.good enough either, but bad weather across the other side of the world
:26:33. > :26:40.turned out to be a lifesaver. Guy, this year wasn't quite the disaster
:26:40. > :26:43.you thought it was going to be. good news was, while we were
:26:43. > :26:46.getting rained on, in America they were having a terrible drought that
:26:46. > :26:54.caused a global shortage of wheat, so that's driven up the price of my
:26:54. > :26:57.wheat from �150 to �200 a tonne. So I got a good price for my wheat
:26:57. > :27:00.although my yields were disappointing. And what about the
:27:00. > :27:04.future? What should farmers like yourself be doing if we continue to
:27:04. > :27:07.have such extreme weather? If the weather is going to stay this
:27:07. > :27:11.difficult, as a farmer I think I would look to technology - make
:27:11. > :27:15.sure I've got good combining, so I can snatch my crops and get them in
:27:15. > :27:19.in good condition, when I get the small chances I do. I need to be
:27:19. > :27:23.reliant on fungicides to keep the diseases off my crops. And as a
:27:23. > :27:26.business, I suppose I could expand my business to I'm not quite so
:27:26. > :27:30.dependent on crop production and I'd look to things like tourism and
:27:30. > :27:34.leisure as possible additional sources of income. Guy has already
:27:34. > :27:38.found some other uses for his land. He's turned part of it into a golf
:27:38. > :27:44.course. He's built a holiday cottage and even rents some of it
:27:44. > :27:49.as an airfield. And, 20 years ago, this was a field of wheat? Like
:27:49. > :27:53.lots of farmers, we've diversified and set up an airstrip here. I
:27:53. > :27:56.suppose the irony is in a bad year like 2012 the bad weather even
:27:57. > :28:01.affects this. We had to close the strip in April, because the planes
:28:01. > :28:07.just couldn't land. It was too boggy. The bad weather of 2012
:28:07. > :28:10.affected everything. For our region's farmers, it set up a chain
:28:10. > :28:14.of events which went from bad to worse. Guy Smith might have gone
:28:14. > :28:19.under had it not been for a severe drought in America. But what about
:28:19. > :28:22.next year? And the year after that? If we are to have drastic changes
:28:22. > :28:27.in the weather, then our farmers will have to make more investment