Farmers are a pretty resilient bunch and they will normally cope with the effects of a couple of wet days without paying too much attention to media hype.
The last few days have been somewhat out of the ordinary, however, in terms of the magnitude of the flooding and the damage done.
Farmland itself generally recovers fairly quickly and if it means homes can be kept dry, most farmers will accept that they have to be prepared to play temporary host to floodwaters.
What they are not prepared to accept is the situation where flooding could be prevented by better river maintenance. Take the situation on the South Esk for example. Brechin has long been a pinch point and the official response has been to spend millions on flood defences along River Street.
Local farmers have told me long before this week’s floods that this has been the wrong approach. Look to the south bank of the river, they say, and it is clear that the problem stems from the huge accumulation of gravel which is reducing the river’s capacity by maybe 50%.
The answer is clearly to dredge out the gravel as has been done since time immemorial.
Farmers up and down the South Esk and other watercourses around the area stand ready to remove excess material at no cost but they tell me Sepa continually refuses permission.
Time for a policy review, I think.