Cities, towns and villages have suffered from floods but nowhere is it more evident in Yorkshire to the thousands who pass by every day than at Tadcaster.

Motorists whizzing by on the A64 have see them in full view as they cross the River Wharfe. On the Tadcaster side of the road the football pitches of Tadcaster Albion are drowned so deep the goals look better suited to water polo. Look to the other side and you see what appears to be a large lake.

James Sykes of North Milford Grange rents 22 acres and another 45 acres on both sides of the road. His mixed farming operation runs to some 500 acres – part owned, part rented – growing sugar beet, potatoes, wheat and barley, as well as livestock running to 250 sheep and 50 suckler cattle.

James expects winter floods. But he has seen the water invade his land with depressing regularity in the summer since 2000. He wonders just how much longer he can go on paying out for land that he will not receive an income from again this year.

"I've stood and watched it fill up. It's a bit solemn really. The water takes all of the sound somehow. It's this deadly feeling and you can feel it in the air while it's happening.

"You can have your eyes closed and you know the water's coming up because you get that quiet, completely silent feeling. And you know the water's there, about to engulf you.

"The River Wharfe is the fastest rising river in Europe and so it does come up very quickly with the amount of water coming down from the Dales. You can be turning hay, go once around the field and the
river is out of sight. But when you come back around the tide has come in and the river is 12ft higher. One night this field can be completely dry and by next morning it will be full and very deep."

The critical time for him is between May and October when he uses the land as valuable grazing for his suckler cattle. He has struggled again this summer.

"We reseeded all of it with Tornado fast-growing grass, which we had been told grows in eight weeks. And it did. We had a wonderful crop of grass and we were just going to harvest it in late July/early August when it started to come on a bit showery.

"So we left it until the showers had gone, but as everyone now knows
they didn't go. The showers got heavier and we didn't have chance to harvest it. Then it flooded in September."

James lost all of the grazing for his cattle and put them
on to winter feeding in the corral on higher ground just up from the flooded area. It means he has had to meet the cost of feeding and bedding up his stock for weeks on end when they would normally be out to grass.

It's a double whammy of the worst kind. He has lost a crop that he estimates to have cost £120 an acre when he reseeded, and he has paid for additional feed and bedding that he shouldn't have needed.

Yet he's philosophical about his position. "This is a designated flood plain – as all of this lowland is from Tadcaster right the way down to the mouth of the Wharfe at Cawood.

"It's the same as many other rivers like it. The problem isn't particularly the drainage – although we have cleaned some of the drains and that has proved worthwhile. It's the amount of water
that comes on when we get a flood.

"Instead of getting 30mm of rain within a week we're now getting 100mm all at once. When it comes down to us from the Dales it comes so quickly and floods probably a foot deep over the bank.

"Our land is lower-lying than the football pitches so it ends up staying here for longer. They're able to start playing football again within a short while because it drains so well. There is drainage on our land too, but water weighs a lot and when it is so deep it presses the soil down.

"It's not until you subsoil it again that it opens up fully and lets it away. That's why we have the standing water here today."

Years ago, cattle were brought across from Ireland and fattened on the river valleys and overflow river lands. James grazes his cattle here in much the same fashion, but he is now questioning what he can do for the best for the future.

"Before 2000 we didn't get summer floods. Between May and October we never saw one, now we get two per summer. It's a pity we couldn't hold all of the water in and develop a leisure park, with boating and such as that."

But it's designated as a flood plain to protect Tadcaster. The Environment Agency wouldn't allow it to be flooded all of the time, because they need it as relief for the water that's coming down the river, so that it saves it from bursting into people's houses.

"We've lost all of the grazing and we had the silage almost within our grasp. We used to grow potatoes in here in the '70s and '80s but we can't grow them in here now. We're just wondering what to put
in next."

James realises he's not alone. Similar problems are facing farmers up and down the country. "This is happening everywhere, right down to the South-West. We're all losing good grazing land and it will be upsetting the livestock industry probably more so than any other, because nearly every farm once had its own bit of ings land."

There have been rumblings, through the National Farmers' Union, that part of the blame for greater flooding is down to rivers not being cleaned out, either properly or not at all. James doesn't go with that theory to explain his circumstances.

"I feel that if they did this all the way up to Otley – cutting the trees back and dredging the river – the water would come down even quicker and we'd probably be flooded out much faster than we are."

Is there any up-side to what happens on the land that James farms?

"You could look at it from the environmental point of view and say that there will be more wildlife. But it's destroying wildlife as well. Nesting birds, such as moorhens and anything that nests low down, are being flooded out too. At the moment, I can't really see a positive."

The scene may look spectacular when you're gazing comfortably from a car or coach. The huge stretch of water does look impressive. But clearly it is having an effect on the way in which James Sykes and his family may farm in the future.