An organisation is calling on the government to not ignore the significance of agricultural land in flood prevention strategies.

The Country Land and Business Association (CLA) says it is vital that government protects land used in agriculture and food production from flood risks and that the land's functional value should be taken into consideration as well as its financial value.

CLA highlighted the risk that flooding can pose to farms, where floods can ruin harvests and damage livestock, buildings and equipment.

Susan Twining, CLA Chief Land Use Policy Adviser, said: "While focusing on urban areas is understandable, we cannot ignore the strategic importance of agricultural land to crop and livestock production, for example.

"This is why we have called for a common-sense approach which empowers landowners to devise, build and manage flood management schemes to protect their own livelihoods. This would also free up additional resources for the Environment Agency to support flood and coastal resilience across England.

"We also made the point that as part of the wider discussions on delivering public goods, there is an opportunity to use a future ELMS scheme to support natural flood management – whether planting trees, allowing a natural river bend to re-establish itself or encouraging peatland and saltmarshes."

As part of its response to the Environment Agency’s draft National Flood and Coastal Erosion Risk Management Strategy consultation, CLA also said that farmers and landowners should be 'encouraged and empowered' to conduct flood management work on their own land.

The organisation also asserted that the Environmental Land Management Schemes (ELMS) should incentivise natural flood management through methods such as planting trees and allowing natural river bends to re-establish.

However, CLA emphasised that this must be backed up by long-term work and funding in addition to immediate flood response.

CLA also commented on the devastating effect that flooding can have on coastal regions.

Brian Richards, Flood Risk Manager at Dorset Council, said: "We recognise the economic benefits of protecting agricultural land from flooding. We also know that natural flood management can help protect areas further down the river. Flood risk management schemes designed to protect individual land holdings need to also consider the potential effects on neighbouring land. Occasionally, these schemes will require approval from either the Environment Agency or Dorset Council as the lead local flood authority."