The stress associated with cashflow problems are yet to reveal themselves to farmers and growers, believes the Rev David Creasey, associate priest at Morton, Rippingale and Haconby.
Mr Creasey is vice-chairman of trustees of the Lincolnshire Rural Support Network, which assists farmers and growers with problems of all kinds.
A year ago, the network was dealing with people with cashflow problems caused by delays with the Rural Payments Agency.
The government is more up to date with these payments now, and the nature of problems being presented to the network has changed.
Mr Creasey said: “That’s been replaced by other issues, but over-riding everything is the weather and the state of the harvest. There’s hardly a sector of the industry that’s not been affected by the weather, with the exception of poultry. It’s just been a grim season for everybody.”
He said all kinds of issues cropped up in addition to the financial ones, but he added: “I am not sure we have seen the bulk of those yet because after a bad harvest there’s always a lag. People won’t run out of money until the last three months before the next harvest. That’s true of all crops.
“The stress manifests in all ways, such as family issues, because it impacts on the whole family, not just the individual, and we get cases where the older generation want to retire and can’t get out and leave it intact for the nxt generation.”