July 31, 2007

UK floods creating water shortage for livestock

Severe floods in the UK is floods is threatening drinking water supplies for UK livestock.

Heavy rains have caused severe flooding in farmlands in the Midlands and Wales, damaging crops and shutdowns of water plants. The latter has caused a shortage of drinking water to both humans and livestock.

Robert Brooks of the National Farmers Union (NFU) Mutual in Gloucestershire told the English farming magazine Farmers Weekly that the lack of fresh water was the biggest issue.

The NFU has been arranging for mobile water tankers to provide water supplies for livestock and for washing of essential equipment.

A mature chicken needs about 0.2 litres of water daily.

The water plant is expected to take a week to be drained, cleaned and disinfected.

The floods will cost farming hundreds of millions of pounds, the NFU estimated, with little compensation expected from the government or insurance companies.

While equipment are insured, crop and stock losses along with clean-up costs, would have to be borne by farmers.

Pig management expert and Pig Progress columnist John Gadd called for water plants and power stations in flood plains to have a watertight flood defence built around them to prevent water supplies being cut off during a flood. The water plants should have interconnecting pipelines to other plants outside the area so that drinking water can be moved between them in emergencies, he suggested.