Farming “on the front line of the climate crisis”

2026 has been a year of weather extremes, with England seeing its warmest June and driest July since records began. Some areas in southern England saw as little as one percent of their average rainfall in July. These factors cause compounding issues, as hot weather increases household water demand and droughts lower the levels of existing river, reservoir, and groundwater reserves. Climate change makes extreme weather such as this more frequent and intense, and when harsh conditions cause production to drop and prices to rise, it is the poorest and most vulnerable who cannot access food and are often left invisible.

At the start of August, I visited a friend at Halstead Hill Farm in the East Midlands, and he showed me the effects the early stages of the drought were having on the farm. This farm pioneers and champions several sustainable farming techniques, including the use of agroforestry and herbal leys. After the remainder of a hot, dry August, in which the East Midlands were officially declared in drought, I got in touch with regenerative farmer Doctor Miriam Stoate and agri-ecologist Professor Chris Stoate, who manage and farm at Halstead Hill Farm.

“This summer, we have been overwhelmed, feeling like we are firefighting and on the front line of the climate crisis”

Throughout their responses, Dr. and Prof. Stoate stressed how a number of factors have left them less impacted by the extreme weather. These range from the fortuitous installation of water troughs and supplies around the farm in 2025, to the ability of their sheep – Wiltshire Horns – to naturally lose their wool, saving them the time, exertion, and expense of shearing their flock in the hot weather. In spite of these respites, the conditions have been extremely difficult to manage, with Stoate stating that: “This summer, we have been overwhelmed, feeling like we are firefighting and on the front line of the climate crisis.”

One of the issues they encountered for the first time this year was the additional risk of disease to their livestock: “We have had to vaccinate our sheep for Bluetongue for the first time this year, with additional handling, vet and medicine and labour costs.”

Bluetongue is a disease carried by midges that thrive in hotter weather, and Dr. and Prof. Stoate noted that this means the recent prevalence and northward movement of the disease is associated with the effects of climate change. The first recorded instances of bluetongue in the UK in 15 years were in 2023-24. Bluetongue affects sheep, cattle, and goats, among other animals. While it has no direct effects on food safety, the impacts can be as severe as birth defects, stillbirth and death, and outbreaks leading to prolonged animal movement restrictions. They also noted that, elsewhere, sheep with longer fleeces will be susceptible to flystrike, a condition where flies lay their eggs on livestock and maggots burrow into the flesh. Flies and maggots are more active in hot weather, exacerbating the issue.

Livestock are also directly suffering from the extreme weather, with heat stress leading to lower fertility and milk yields among dairy cattle. Dr. and Prof. Stoate also noted low grass growth, reflecting poor grazing conditions nationwide, and had to abandon a grazing plan that involved moving sheep around their farm every three weeks, as they could not leave them without access to shade in the more exposed areas of the farm.

“The biggest challenge in terms of feeding livestock comes in the winter and early spring, when the grass is no longer growing and there are fewer reserves available for over wintering. Grass productivity is also impacted in subsequent years”

They also explained that the effects of the weather will not be contained to this summer: “The biggest challenge in terms of feeding livestock comes in the winter and early spring, when the grass is no longer growing and there are fewer reserves available for over wintering. Grass productivity is also impacted in subsequent years.”

Their Herbal Leys, which typically allow for two harvests per year, were only able to produce enough forage for one cut, as the spring cut was unaffected by the later drought conditions. Despite typically relying on grass to feed livestock during the summer, many farmers have been forced to use their winter forage supplies, or purchase supplementary food stocks for their animals.

Fruit and vegetables have also been badly affected by the extreme weather, with typically seasonal produce, such as broccoli and lettuce, needing to be imported. Yields for some crops have dropped by as much as 40%, which will lead to vegetables being smaller, lower-quality, and more expensive, in a form of vegetable ‘shrinkflation’. The harvests of fruit at Halstead Hill Farm have seen similar issues: “This year, some of our apple tree varieties have failed to produce any apples. Other apple tree varieties have produced apples that are too small to sell and many of them have insect damage. We are monitoring which apple tree varieties cope with drought.”

The I Paper has noted that the direct effects this will have on our diets will vary from crop to crop. Shrinking potatoes are likely to affect the availability of large baking potatoes, whereas suffering carrot crops, which are harvested in September, are unlikely to affect supply until 2027. The effects on other crops, especially those sold processed or frozen, will be lessened significantly. Pea farmers have seen conditions so poor that some farmers are switching altogether to chickpeas or lentils, but even this is unlikely to affect availability in the short term.

Halstead Hill Farm have experienced similar problems with their plum, cobnut, and hazelnut harvests. They noted that some varieties of plum were more drought-resistant, but it varies year by year, and that “varieties that are drought-resistant may not be so resistant to winter waterlogging, which is another increasing weather extreme that impacts trees.”

However, they noted that cob and hazel trees proved especially susceptible to the drought conditions due to their shallow roots, saying: “We have planted thousands of these trees on the farm, including in hedgerows, and have decided that this species is likely to be unsuitable for a rapidly changing climate.”

Cereals and other staples have yielded very poorly, with many crops ripening and dying off early. Dr. and Prof. Stoate note that such early harvest times have added complications, as early harvests lead to much harder, more expensive, and greenhouse gas-intensive storage, especially for fruit, which goes bad far faster in the hot weather. 2026 has seen the earliest harvest in 20 years for many cereal and oilseed crops, which are on track to see their worst yields in more than 40 years: down 2.5 million tonnes compared to previous forecasts, representing £390 million in lost revenues. These figures have reached such record lows, despite somewhat favourable conditions in some areas in the north of the UK, and good yields for the rapeseed harvest.

In a follow-up correspondence, Dr. Stoate noted that the rapidly-changing climate in the UK has seen favourable conditions generally moving north, though this varies due to numerous factors, like soil type and local rainfall. This has manifested with new varieties of birds, butterflies, and grasshoppers appearing on their farm, and some areas in northern England and Scotland seeing more success in arable farming.

However, this is of little comfort to many. Dr. Stoate mentioned how approximately 75% of her brother’s farm in Normanton is now unsuitable for growing arable crops, as characteristics that had previously been advantageous, such as shallow, free-draining soils, are disadvantages during heatwaves and droughts. Northward movement is also an unsuitable solution for slower growing crops, like trees, which cannot be relocated quickly enough to keep pace with the UK’s now unpredictable conditions.

Additionally, drought and hot weather cause issues for the vital work on biodiversity done by farms like Halstead Hill: “On our farm, the biggest impact [on biodiversity projects] has been on the hedgerow plants and trees that we have planted in recent years. Even some trees that have been growing and establishing on the farm for five years would not have survived the drought and extreme heat if they had not been watered.”

Mitigating these issues is extremely time, energy, water and cost-intensive. Initially helpful measures, like mulching newly-planted hedgerows with woodchip from the farm to retain moisture, proved to not be enough, and Chris and Miriam had to resort to purchasing and installing irrigation systems for the first time in their farming careers. Limitations with water pressure meant this could not extend to the entirety of their 60-hectare farm, with thousands of trees needing to be watered by hand. This was not a simple fix either, requiring Dr. Stoate to source 20 to 25 litre water containers, and Prof. Stoate to spend 20 hours per week for two months watering plants at the beginnings and ends of days to avoid evaporation due to the hot weather. They also noted that watering has to be done deeply, as otherwise the trees and hedgerows will grow shorter roots and become less drought-resistant for any future extreme heatwaves.

Dr. and Prof. Stoate described installing irrigation systems as “something neither of us ever expected to have to do in our lifetimes”, a sentiment reflected by many farmers around the country. Crops like wheat, which typically draw their moisture from rain, and do not require watering, are failing due to dry soil, and the infrastructure to deliver the necessary water to these crops is expensive and time-consuming to install.

Dr. and Prof. Stoate noted that while the £65 million support package announced by Andy Burnham last month includes £15 million for on-farm reservoirs, building such a reservoir “is a very significant commitment and not applicable to all farms.”

“When there is a drought, soil dries out, microbial activity ceases, and earthworms go deep into the soil. This has a negative impact on soil health and function”

They also noted the holistic damage drought can do to the land: “On the farm, we observed deeper cracks in the soil than we have ever seen before. A very deep pond dried up entirely,” and that “when there is a drought, soil dries out, microbial activity ceases, and earthworms go deep into the soil. This has a negative impact on soil health and function.”

These issues can be partially mitigated by the deep-rooting, drought-resistant herbs, grasses, and legumes, which can “influence microbial activity, carbon cycling, and water infiltration in winter, improving the soil’s capacity to reduce downstream flood risk.”

However, they found that newly-sown crops struggle in such extreme weather conditions, including the increased waterlogging and flooding during extreme winters, which can increase slug and snail damage and render the use of heavy machinery impossible. They described how even areas of drought-resistant herbal ley sowed last autumn will require multiple costly rounds of reseeding to establish, while not producing. They also noted the most resilient and regenerative seeds for herbal leys are more expensive and less productive than the most widely-used cultivars, which means financial support from the government continues to be required to enable their wider adoption.

Issues like British soil health and biodiversity might seem easy to ignore when around 40% of the UK’s food already comes from abroad, but compounding shocks to the global food system have shown how vital it is for local agriculture to be sustainable and resilient. As the war in Ukraine rages on, attacks from Russia have caused grain exports to drop by more than 75%, and the Iran-US war has prevented fertiliser from passing through the Strait of Hormuz, further reducing global food production. Additionally, many other European countries have been seeing adverse effects from extreme weather. Even Ireland, which received far more rain than the UK over the summer, has seen extreme strain on its agricultural system. National Farmers Union President Tom Bradshaw told the BBC: “We’re not going to be able to trade our way through this potential crisis.”

A number of the aforementioned fortunes enjoyed by Halstead Hill Farm were not simply fortuitous, but the result of foresight, and the implementation of regenerative and resilient farming techniques. They noted that, despite their poor hay harvest, “because we selected deep-rooting grasses, herbs and legumes, our leys have remained greener than neighbouring fields and have regrown quicker in response to the recent rain”, and that they had identified another drought-resistant grass cultivar to introduce in future seed mixtures.

The risk of heat stress in livestock was also somewhat mitigated by the choice to integrate trees and hedgerows onto the same land as livestock and crops, a practice called agroforestry, which provides shade for animals, as well as benefits to soil health and biodiversity.

One of the biggest barriers to implementing systems like this around the country is the bureaucracy, time, and knowledge required to access financial support. Most of the aforementioned £65 million support package can only be applied for after 22 September 2026, rendering it unhelpful for the immediate costs of this year’s drought.

Furthermore, it is being distributed within a system that remains extremely complicated and inflexible. Dr. and Prof. Stoate noted that, despite both having PhDs, the regulations and paperwork can be overwhelming for them, and the bureaucracy is inaccessible for dyslexic farmers, of which there are a greater proportion than among the general population. They also described an example of how current fiscal support for agroforestry made a distinction between planted and self-seeded oak trees, and would not financially support the maintenance of the latter, despite the ecological and establishment benefits.

“Different people sharing and journeying together from different perspectives, farms, backgrounds, countries, and disciplines in practical ways, on the ground, is essential”

They noted that this would all need to be backed up by an increase in data collection, farm relevant research, and local, national, and international knowledge sharing to identify the best adaptations for climate resilience. Even if future conditions and best adaptations can’t be fully anticipated, further local, national, and international level collaboration would allow for more informed and coordinated responses to any future challenges.

They would go on to note how their experience has shown them: “Different people sharing and journeying together from different perspectives, farms, backgrounds, countries, and disciplines in practical ways, on the ground, is essential.”

Additionally, the government needs to fully recognise the seasonality, timeliness, and importance of farming cycles and benefits, beyond just food production, and support wider public understanding of the way the local food system works, on top of legislatively supporting markets for local produce.

Dr. and Prof. Stoate described the work they have done towards these ends already. They regularly host educational visits around the farm and were struggling to remain hopeful as the drought has dragged on.

Despite this, they described appreciating the support and encouragement from visitors, being given articles and contacts with relevant advice and information.

Dr. Stoate also found hope when facilitating a session at the Landworking Alliance’s Women and Diverse Genders Summer Gathering, where attendees shared what went well and what they had observed and learned over the summer: “Having both researched climate change for over 30 years this is the first time we have felt like our brains can’t cope with the speed of change happening to be wise enough to know how best to adapt. We’re observing and learning from nature, to see how that adapts – what does well, what struggles. We won’t plant holly trees again, but we will plant more fig trees. We reflect that we are part of the natural world and we need to remember and reconnect deeply.”