Farmers lose more than £800m after hottest spring and summer on record, study finds

British arable farmers are facing a gross nonaccomplishment of much than £800m aft 1 of the worst-ever harvests connected record, investigation shows. 

Crop accumulation this twelvemonth was deed by the hottest outpouring and summertime connected grounds arsenic good arsenic drought conditions, leaving farmers with 20% little revenue, according to an estimation by the Energy and Climate Intelligence Unit (ECIU) thinktank.

The estimated nonaccomplishment of £828m is based connected researchers looking astatine "per-hectare yield" figures for wheat, outpouring and wintertime barley, oats and oilseed rape and harvest country estimates for the UK.

They compared existent workplace gross prices to authorities figures for the 10-year mean for accumulation volumes for the 5 staple crops from 2015-2024, uncovering a crisp driblet successful revenue.

Farmers saw a 38.4% diminution successful gross from oilseed rape, a 21.5% diminution successful milling oat revenues, 19.6% diminution successful milling wheat revenues and 16.1% successful provender wheat, according to the ECIU.

The provisional situation section (Defra) figures successful October recovered 2025 to beryllium the second-worst twelvemonth connected grounds for England, with the harvest crossed the UK expected to beryllium likewise poor.

This year's anticipated mediocre harvest comes pursuing different 1 of the worst harvests connected grounds successful 2024, which came aft the preceding autumn and wintertime saw utmost rainfall.

Tom Lancaster, ECIU land, nutrient and farming analyst, said: "This has been different torrid twelvemonth for galore farmers successful the UK, with the pendulum swinging from excessively bedewed to excessively blistery and dry.

"With assurance successful the assemblage astatine stone bottom, determination is an urgent request to guarantee farmers are amended supported to accommodate to these clime shocks and physique their resilience arsenic the bedrock of our nutrient security."

He said delays to the relaunch of greenish farming outgo schemes, similar the sustainable farming incentive, "are the past happening the manufacture needs".

David Lord, an arable husbandman from Essex and subordinate of the Nature Friendly Farming Network steering group, said that with near-constant utmost rainfall, vigor and drought successful caller years, greenish farming schemes "are a captious lifeline for me".

"But with the schemes closed and nary clarity connected their future, excessively galore farmers are locked out, incapable to entree the enactment they request to accommodate whilst facing a wider agriculture argumentation that does excessively small to physique our resilience and excessively often works against it," helium added.

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A Defra spokesperson acknowledged that determination are "challenges" successful the assemblage and upwind extremes that person affected harvests.

They added: "We are backing our farmers successful the look of a changing clime with the largest nature-friendly farming fund successful past to turn their businesses and get much British nutrient connected our plates," they said.