The Rural Payments Agency has published information for flood affected farmers on the following webpage: RPA schemes & livestock movements - advice for flood affected farmers.  This includes guidance on what you need to do about BPS, Stewardship Schemes, cross compliance, reporting animal movements and when to apply for Force Majeure.  The Environment Agency has also published a 15 page booklet containing flood recovery advice on work to river banks and structures and removal/disposal of waste - see: Environment Agency flood advice.

• Yorkshire Flooding – Support and Potential Funding
  The North Yorkshire Local EnterprisePartnership (LEP) has an emergency fund to help all flood affected businesses including farmers of £2,000 per business.  Contact Norma Hood 01609 532681 or email: Hood@businessinspiredgrowth.com
• The Prince’s Countryside Fund(PCF) has donated £50,000 to help the farming community.  Their funding is being administered by the Addington Fund and you can apply for help on the following webpage Addington Fund - Flood Relief, or call 01926 620135.
• Forage Aid has received pledges and offers of donated fodder and feedstuffs:  Phone: 07967 219991 or visitforageaid.org.uk
• Press reports have stated that Defra is considering a package of measures designed to help the victims of the recent floods.  For farmers, we believe a scheme is being developed modelled on the Farming Recovery Fund which operated in 2015/16 after Storm Desmond in Cumbria for uninsurable losses.  We await further details, but recommend farmers take photos, measure lengths of damaged field boundaries and assess the extent of areas of flood damage – eg debris on fields.

 The Farmer Network is available for a chat on any issues related to flooding.  Contact Carol Moffat on (07917) 666514 or our office on (01768) 868615.  We are here to help and please let us know if you would like paper versions of any of the advice or need help applying for funding.