Golf Balls Do you consider golf balls to be a risk to your arable crops? Ask any farmer that question and it’s fairly certain the answer will be “er, no!”. And rightly so. However, rephrase the question slightly and you might hear another answer.
Do you consider hailstones as big as golf balls to be a risk to your arable crops? And that is, quite literally, a different ball game.
Powerful hailstorms are a phenomenon which appear to be becoming more frequent, with two widely reported storms hitting Essex and Cambridgeshire in late July this year causing significant damage. These storms make the news when they damage a car or conservatory but go largely unreported when the only areas affected are fields laden with crops. Yet they are commonplace.
Our changing climate makes it ever harder to
Mitigation comes in the form of crop varieties which offer an increased resistance to these storms and can definitely help. Failing that, there is insurance to pick up the pieces. The increasing volume of oilseed rape grown in recent years has led to a revival in the uptake of hail insurance, with many farm insurers offering cover as an add-on to an existing farm combined policy.
To get a quotation you will typically be asked for the crop types, areas grown and expected yields. Geography also plays a part as some areas of the country are rated as being at higher risk due to past events. But it is one of the simpler insurances to obtain quotations for and should become part of the annual review of insurance requirements going forwards. That way the only golf ball you will have to worry will be the one that would not go in the hole on the 18th green!
predict when these weather events will happen, with the only certainty being that hailstorms are not good for crops at any point! Recently sown crops are tender and can be decimated, while the other end of the scale hail can leave whole swathes of potential yield lying on the ground and unable to be harvested.
1 0 | S C R U T T O N B L A N D | A G R I B U S I N E S S
Made with FlippingBook Learn more on our blog