'People forget what farmers do for the county'

A Shropshire sheep farmer has said people forget "what farmers do for the county" during extreme weather.

Edward Garratt, who farms near the Wrekin said: "When the weather gets really bad we'll be out helping the public."

That included clearing essential roads of snow and fallen trees, using their farm vehicles, sometimes in the middle of the night.

This was while dealing with the effects of extreme weather on their own farms he said.

Mr Garratt, who is also an NFU spokesperson, said during Storm Darragh "myself and my son were out at 11 o'clock at night clearing trees off the road up above so the public could get through".

Over the past two years he said: "We just seem to go from heavy rain, to heavy wind to snow and it just seems to never give us a respite."

He said that had meant "an incredibly poor harvest last year" at a time when costs were "rising way faster than inflation" and farmers were being expected to produce to "better and better environmental standards".

Mr Garratt, who was preparing his farm for another icy-weekend, said: "Farming goes out of the way to provide food for the country."

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