Question to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs:

To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, whether her Department has undertaken an assessment of the resilience of agricultural water supplies during prolonged dry weather.

The Environment Agency (EA) and Defra are holding monthly National Drought Group meetings gathering intelligence from the agriculture sector on water resilience. Supplies in irrigation reservoirs have rapidly declined following a dry spring and many are now at less than 50% capacity. Conditions on abstraction licences to protect the environment also reduce water availability where river flows are low.

The EA has downgraded its spray irrigation prospects forecast for farmers following the dry weather and deterioration in the water resources position. The EA’s irrigation prospect report includes support packages available for farmers to increase their resilience.