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The notion, popular amongst officialdom, that farm land surrounding towns and cities can be used as a sacrificial sponge' to soak up flood water should have been drowned at birth because it flies in the face of the need for food production and care of the countryside, claims the South West NFU.

In a submission to the Environment Agency, the Union says the real answer is to improve the flow and capacity of the river network.

But it claims there is a problem with this because different government agencies have conflicting priorities, with conservation officials preferring to see waterways allowed to silt up to support wildlife.

Cash-strapped government bodies are also looking to tap into severely-stretched agri-environment scheme funding to deliver river catchment changes when this would be wholly inadequate and inappropriate, it claims.

Simon Harrison, NFU chairman in Gloucestershire, the county worst affected by last year's flooding, says: "Having attended a meeting organised by the Environment Agency about the Severn flood plain management plan, I was very disappointed by the Agency's mindset.

"They did not seem to have answers to concerns over the lack of maintenance of the river and at no point did they address the idea of increasing its flow and capacity."

At a time when food production and security should be at the forefront of everybody's mind, the NFU will continue to lobby hard against farm land being used as the sacrificial sponge' for flooding because of inappropriate development and cash-strapped government agencies with conflicting priorities and little or no interest in agriculture, added an NFU South West spokesman.

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