Searing heatwaves and a crippling drought have left many East Anglian farmers grappling with significant financial losses after the worst harvest for decades.
The lack of rainfall during our record-breaking hot summer has hampered the growth of key food crops in parched soils.
As a result, analysis by the Energy and Climate Intelligence Unit (ECIU) estimates the UK is on course to record its smallest cereals and oilseeds harvest since detailed records began in 1984.
In East Anglia, farmers have reported huge drops in yields and revenue, prompting appeals for more government help to access water for food production - but also sparking discussions about potentially growing more Mediterranean crops in future such as olives and grapes, which could be better suited to our warming climate.
Tom Dye is estate director at the Barsham Estate near Fakenham, which completed harvesting its 2,000 acres of wheat, barley and oilseed rape on Wednesday.
"I feel quite glum about it," he said. "On the face of it is the worst harvest I've ever seen.
"When I look at the latest budget projections, which were done for the first of July, the yield reductions relative to that budget are anything between 7pc and 38pc.
"Soil type and crop variety does have an impact, but our wheat yields are 17pc down on budget, spring barley is 25pc down, but winter barley was only 7pc down on budget, which was good. Oilseed rape yields were only 3pc down on budget, so that is the star performer of the year, albeit still not breaking any records."
Mr Dye is now analysing the financial implications, but estimates the estate could lose "about £90,000 off the bottom line" relative to the reduced budget set on July 1 - and £150,000 from its original budget for the year.
So, with weather extremes becoming increasingly common, the business is exploring new ways to adapt.
"This is not an outlier anymore," said Mr Dye. "I probably have been guilty over the last couple of years of thinking it's an anomaly, it'll get better, we just need to change a few timings, up a few seed rates, and we'll be fine.
"But actually, this is now a trend. So we're going to have to make some pretty structural changes to how we farm. We either need to start having the security of a lot more water around the business to be able to use on a broader portfolio of crops, or we fundamentally start changing what crops we're farming.
"We're not the first to be thinking about this because it's being done, but potentially things like olives, grapes, almonds - there are other crops out there that are successfully grown in southern Europe that we now have to start thinking about."
Hoveton-based farmer Nick Deane harvests around 800 hectares of crops for five neighbouring businesses in the Bure valley.
He said: "Undoubtedly our yield is down probably 10-20pc below our average, and the quality is down. Malting barley has been very mixed and the ability to get it into the maltsters has been difficult to meet their specifications.
"In terms of the irrigable crops, I think nearly everybody has used up all their winter storage reservoir capacity, and obviously now we're at the point where you're not allowed to abstract from some rivers at all.
"There are conversations that I've been party to where people have grown their crop and now haven't got the water to actually harvest it. There are some carrots that are literally welded into the ground because they need water to come out. But they've been banned from doing any more abstraction from those rivers, so the carrots will have to stay in the ground until they get rain."
Mr Deane said the drought and extreme heat across Europe this summer underlined the need to safeguard homegrown production rather than relying on imports.
"We do need a reliable water source, and there are blockers in the system at the moment which will not let farmers invest in a lot of those things that they need to give them long-term water security," he said.
"One specific thing we really need is a more flexible abstraction licencing system. We have a 1960s system that is just out of date, not fit for purpose. If we get wet in the summer, we need to be able to use that water and store it.
"We need the government to be showing confidence in what we are doing, and that they are genuinely sincere about producing our food in this country.
"And we need to look towards the plant breeders to produce more drought tolerant varieties, or indeed considering alternative crops."
When asked if he agreed with the ECIU estimate of the worst harvest since 1984, Mr Deane said: "It's got to be getting that way."
Share