Cambridgeshire farmer and TFA member, John Pike, has been badly let down by DEFRA's Farming Recovery Fund which was supposed to provide financial help to farmers impacted by severe weather in 2024.

Following months of delay, with the scheme having been derailed by the General Election, the £60 million fund was rolled out in November of 2024 to cover some 13,000 impacted farming businesses. However, due to the methodology for allocating payments based on Met office data, rather than looking at evidence of real-life damage on the ground, many farms have been left under compensated, and others have received funds where they did not experience any flood damage at all.

The RPA used Met Office satellite data and river gauge readings to identify land severely impacted by flooding. Rainfall data from the Met Office was used to identify local authority areas where at least half of the area experienced rainfall at more than 70% above the 30-year average for the October 2023 - March 2024 period. A scaling factor was then applied to reflect uncertainty about where the rainfall events occurred within the local authority area. The two totals were added together to find eligible hectares per farm, subtracting any overlapping area.

Unfortunately, the Government's decision to make area-based payments without considering evidenced claims has resulted in more severely affected farmers, such as Mr Pike, losing out on compensation with no means of recourse.

TFA Farm Policy Adviser, Lynette Steel, remarked, "The TFA argued for an appeals mechanism to address cases, like Mr Pike's, where the methodology did not correctly compensate for the damage caused, but our request fell on deaf ears. Despite further efforts to appeal the scheme outcome, there is no structure within the policy to allow us to do so and is a major shortfall in the scheme design."

Mr Pike commented, "It is a disgrace that, given the current financial pressures on DEFRA, they approved a scheme that has wasted thousands of pounds of taxpayers' money by paying farm businesses that had little or no flooding damage, whilst leaving others, like mine, with a pittance in comparison to the level of damage experienced. Surely, the National Audit Office and the Public Accounts Committee of the House of Commons should be holding DEFRA Ministers and officials to account for these failings."

Mr Pike has written to his local MP, Lee Barron, asking for the matter to be referred to the Parliamentary Ombudsman for further scrutiny but unfortunately, Mr Pike has received no response which means his complaint can be taken no further at this stage. It is hoped that Mr Barron will pick up Mr Pike’s correspondence so that a proper investigation can be undertaken of the decisions made.