South Coast farmers say weather could 'end' businesses next year
It comes as we enter cold winter months after a drought over the summer
Farmers across the South Coast say the weather could be "ending" businesses by next year.
It comes as we enter winter months after a summer of drought.
Tom Peters, Hampshire and Isle of Wight County Advisor for the National Farmers Union, is telling us it's a real concern.
He said: "It's a real concern.
"We're seeing abstraction licences being taken away and I have heard reports of the long-term weather of seeing a wet and rough November through into a more prolonged period of sort of drier and cooler weather through the mid-winter.
"If our reservoirs and rivers are not going to have an increased capacity because the rainfall is not going to be there, we could have a really drastic situation next summer.
"With no irrigation for a lot of the crops that have needed irrigation this summer, with crops like carrots and potatoes.
"It's just not going to be available and people won't be able to get abstraction licences, which is a real worry.
"On top of that, farmers have their own kind of farm reservoirs, and those water levels won't be replenished, which is a drastic situation."
Mr Peters told us why we might be seeing this.
He said: "With the severe drought that we've seen this summer, obviously ground conditions are extremely, extremely hard.
"So if we are going to, and we're just seeing it now, seeing more significant periods of rainfall in short periods of time, because the ground is so dry, water is just going to run off and cause kind of flash flooding situations."