Farmer Blenkiron

By Paul Homewood

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-65099546

That BBC report yesterday featured Farmer Blenkiron:

As well as extreme heat, rainfall has been consistently low for parts of south and southeast England, affecting crop yields.

Andrew Blenkiron’s 6,000-acre (24 sq km) farm in Thetford, Norfolk saw just 2.4mm of rain in February compared to the local average for that month of 43mm. He has now been forced to cut back on plans to plant potatoes, onions, parsnips and carrots by around a fifth.

He said: "Farmers are at the very forefront of climate change on a day-to-day basis… we are used to working with these issues, but we are concerned with the extremes we are now facing."

To cope with the impacts of extreme heat Mr Blenkiron has enlarged reservoirs on his farm and shifted harvesting patterns to prevent wildfires.

But he said that farmers needed more money from government to implement their climate plans, especially if they involved new infrastructure projects like reservoirs.

As I guessed at the time, he was no ordinary farmer, picked at random by the BBC. It turns out that he is the NFU County Chairman for Suffolk: