Half the harvest, twice the bills: how drought hit farms

Half the harvest, twice the bills: how drought hit farms

Charles Day's family farm in Gloucestershire lost half its wheat harvest to the drought

The hottest summer on record, the longest drought, the worst harvest. West Country farmers are tallying the damage from what one described as a "terrible summer".

At Charles Day's family farm in Gloucestershire, the wheat harvest was reduced by half. "It's just soul-destroying," he says.

Dairy farmers had to break into silage clamps set aside for winter to feed cattle after the grass failed. Sarah Godwin says it cost her family's Wiltshire farm "over £100,000". "It's shocking," she says.

I spent the summer seeing farmers fit showers for cows, watch cauliflowers burn to a crisp in the heat, and hunt for apples in cider orchards cut to a tenth of their usual crop.

Now that the harvest is in, how bad was it?

Buy a loaf of bread and there's a strong chance it began in the fields of Charles Day's family farm in north Gloucestershire.

"I love harvest," the fourth generation farmer tells me. "It's a whole year's work coming to fruition."

But 2026 was brutal. He said the crops looked "fantastic" in April. Then in June, the rain stopped and "the sun just stole our yield".

During the crucial weeks of June and July, there was no rain at all. Wheat grains shrivelled instead of filling out, and yields collapsed.

Official figures estimate the total UK cereal harvest was the lowest on record, with wheat down by about three million tonnes, or 11%, according to the Agricultural and Horticultural Development Board (AHDB).

Anthony Hopkins, AHDB director of cereals and oilseeds, says: "At a time of high input costs, arable farmers in the worst-affected areas are really feeling the financial pressure right now."

Shrivelled by drought, the UK wheat harvest was the lowest on record

But in the South West, it was far hotter and the effects were much worse.

When the combines went out on Charles Day's family farm, they brought in a harvest "about 50% down, sometimes more".

"It's just soul-destroying," he adds.

Across the South West, Tom Collins, who speaks for the NFU in Wiltshire, says most cereal farmers saw harvests down "at least 30%". Spring barley and beans were more than 50% down, he adds, and were hit especially hard by the drought.

"Most farmers will give this harvest 3 out of 10", he adds. "They're pretty depressed."

Put butter on your bread, or cheese, and it is probably from the West Country's other farmers - dairy producers.

But unlike the wheat harvest, milk output this summer barely declined.

Total production is down just 4.5%, according to the ADHB.

"That's because we have to feed our cows, and milk them, whatever the weather," explains Sarah Godwin.

Her family raises dairy cows west of Chippenham and sells their milk to a major supermarket.

Sarah Godwin calculates the drought cost her family's dairy farm more than £100,000 in extra feed for the cows

The Cotswolds was badly affected by the drought, leaving grazing pastures brown and offering no nutrition for the cows. So, like many farmers, the Godwins had to open their silage intended for winter and buy in feed to improve their cows' diets.

"Altogether it cost us around £100,000," Godwin explains. "We also had a drop in production yields, that's around £20,000.

"On top of that, cows suffered more lameness, lower fertility, more mastitis. They really did not enjoy the heat."

The family spent £15,000 installing new sprinkler systems and huge fans to cool the cattle in their sheds when they sheltered from the heat outside. All of it was vital for animal welfare, but it added more costs to the business.

Tom Kimber said droughts and floods are becoming "far more frequent" on his Somerset farm

Even the usually lush fields of Somerset withered in the heat. Tom Kimber's family have farmed near Charlton Musgrove in south Somerset, in the heart of England's most productive grazing land. They keep 250 dairy cows on their own grass and cut silage for the winter months.

By September, they would normally have three large clamps of silage ready for winter. This year, they have only cut two, and had to use one throughout July and August to make up for the lack of grass.

But Tom Kimber is sadly getting used to what was once freak weather.

"This is the fourth drought in eight years now, so you barely financially get over the last one and you're hit with another one. It's becoming far more frequent, these events.

"It's incredibly difficult this constant lurching between one extreme to the other, that's what keeps you awake at night."

Climate scientists are clear that weather like this is the new normal.

"What we used to think of as extreme weather, we increasingly consider as normal," says Mike Kendon, a climate scientist at the Met Office.

So what can farmers do about it?

In Gloucestershire, Charles Day's family have a rare asset: a lake. Fed by a local river, it fills over winter and can then be used in summer. They grow salad onions, broccoli and other vegetables on nearby fields, all irrigated by the lake water.

The family wants to enlarge the lake and store more water, doing their bit to turn winter floods into summer irrigation.

Charles Day wants to expand this lake on his farm, but says there is too much red tape and expense at the moment

"But it's so complicated," Day explains. "The red tape, the planning, the licences, the digging - it will be very expensive. And we just get no help from government."

"I hope it helps," Day adds.

Huge cracks opened in cider orchards during the hottest summer on record

Others are trying to farm in a more nature-friendly way. They are planting mixed grasses that cope better with drought, more trees to provide shade, and older cereal varieties that withstand heat better.

All of this costs money, and there are government schemes to support it. But when the latest round of funding opened, it was overwhelmed.

A year's worth of government grants, more than £250m, was handed out in under six hours in an online scramble "reminiscent of Glastonbury ticket sales", as Wiltshire farmer Tom Collins put it.

"It just shows how desperate farmers are," he adds.

"It's so hard to make a living from food people fall over themselves to get these environmental grants, and then they're swallowed up in no time. It's so unfair."

Farming Minister Stephen Morgan adds that the Sustainable Farming Incentive had been designed to be simpler to apply for and that farmers had "responded in force".

Tom Kimber was one of those who missed out. He went online to apply for an extension of an environmental scheme his farm was already running.

"We plant a mix of different grasses that cope better in the drought," he explains. "But they cost more, so we need the grant."

A glitch in the Defra computer system left him locked out of the website for hours. When he got back in, the money had all gone.

Farming, he says, is not easy at the moment.

"When you're being squeezed from both ends, the milk price is 10p litre below the cost of production, and costs are going up all the time.

"You're just forever hoping for a better day, but hope doesn't keep you in business."