ENGLISH FARMERS have joined the ongoing protest outside Cuadrilla's shale gas extraction site on Preston New Road in Lancashire.

Westminster communities secretary Sajid Javid prompted local outrage last year when he overturned Lancashire council's decision to reject the company's application and instead approved the plans for fracking to go ahead at the site near Little Plumpton.

Last weekend, local food producers turned out to oppose the impacts that opponents of the technology claim shale gas extraction will have on agriculture.

Local organic producer Alan Schofield said: "As a Lancashire vegetable farmer whose livelihood depends upon the health and well being of our soils I am shocked that this development has been allowed. The good people of Lancashire said no to this development, only to be overturned by central government. We are not just fighting an unwanted and highly polluting industry, the whole of our democratic process is at stake."

Landworkers Alliance representative Liz Humphrey added: "The fracking industry's international legacy in the US and Australia to date is the permanent contamination of fertile land and critical water supplies. Livestock are often the first to suffer the impacts of air and water pollution, and the standard response to the devastation of herds is denial rather than compensation."