DIRE winter and autumn weather has left many farmers in the region facing costs thousands of pounds higher than expected.

Brian Strong, from Midtown farm at Great Strickland, has lost thousands of pounds thanks to the wet weather in September, October and November.

Mr Strong, who farms dairy, beef and sheep, says the rain has all but ruined two fields of spring barley which produces grain and straw for his stock through the winter months.

"In one of the fields we got he barley but not the straw, but we didn't even get the combine into the other one.

We have lost about 2000 bales of straw."

he said.

On top of the loss of his crop, Mr Strong, along with many other farmers, has had to bring his 250 cattle indoors for winter two months earlier than expected and now faces higher costs.

"We are facing the prospect of a nine month winter if we end up not getting out until May and that can be very expensive."

To make matters worse, the bad weather has ruined thousands of acres of crops in the UK and pushed up feed prices with straw rising to around £80 per tonne.

Like most farmers, Mr Strong was not insured for the weather damage.

"There are quite a few of us in our area that did not get the crops in," said Mr Strong, "It is not just going to be this year that is affected, it is going to take us until next year to get right.

"This has come at a very bad time for farming, but we will just have to make the best of a bad situation," he said.

According to NFU estimates, Britain's farmers could have lost £500 million because of the weather.

NFU president Ben Gill said: "These figures confirm our worst fears about the extent of the losses - some farmers have had almost their entire business wiped out.

"We are deeply worried that the financial suffering will continue beyond this year.

Many farmers have been unable to plant crops that, once harvested, would have provided them with income through to spring 2002.