THE recent drought and its effects on crop growth was a key concern of farmers attending the Ryedale Show.

Farmers gathered throughout the day in the sun outside the National Farmers’ Union (NFU) tents to discuss issues.

According to Geoff Todd, group secretary of the NFU, the dry summer has even supplanted Brexit as being forefront of many farmers’ minds.

“Some months ago we were talking Brexit,” he said, “but that’s more at the political end now. The weather obviously as always is a big issue for us.

“There’s always rumblings going on in the background as well; things like TB, certain chemicals that were up for relicensing earlier in the year, but we’ve got through those stages.

“So of late it has been the weather, the lack of rain, and the problems that we could have with particularly fodder crops just not being there and farmers needing fodder to feed their livestock later on in the year, because we’re using fodder stocks now that we shouldn’t be touching.

“I’ve been speaking to a farmer up in Farndale and he has been feeding his livestock with crops now that he should have been keeping back for winter.

“His silage crops haven’t grown and there’s been no rain to refresh them when they have cut them so we’re going to be terribly short.

“But farmers are very optimistic people generally. We plant crops not knowing what’s going to happen, and farmers want to farm and carry on. We keep doing it.”

And he added: “It’s always good to be at Ryedale Show.

“There’s so many people enjoying themselves; not just our farming community but everybody else who has come to have a look at agriculture, see the wonderful livestock down at the bottom and see the trade stands up here at the top.”