Record heat and drought cost Britain’s arable farmers more than £800m in lost production in 2025 in one of the worst harvests recorded, analysis has estimated.
Three of the five worst harvests on record have now occurred since 2020, leaving some farmers asking whether the growing impacts of the climate crisis are making it too financially risky to sow their crops. Farmers are already facing heavy financial pressure as the costs of fertilisers and other inputs have risen faster than prices.
This year Britain had the hottest and driest spring on record, and the hottest summer, with drought conditions widespread. As a result, the production of the five staple arable crops – wheat, oats, spring and winter barley, and oilseed rape – fell by 20% compared with the 10-year average, according to the analysis by the Energy and Climate Intelligence Unit (ECIU). The harvest in England was the second-worst in records going back to 1984.
Supercharged by global heating, extreme rainfall in the winters of 2019-20 and 2023-24 also led to very poor harvests, as farmers were unable to access waterlogged and flooded fields to drill their crops.
“This has been another torrid year for many farmers in the UK, with the pendulum swinging from too wet to too hot and dry,” said Tom Lancaster at the ECIU. “British farmers have once again been left counting the costs of climate change, with four-fifths now concerned about their ability to make a living due to the fast-changing climate.”
He added: “There is an urgent need to ensure farmers are better supported to adapt to these climate shocks and build their resilience as the bedrock of our food security. In this context, the delays [by ministers] to the relaunch of vital green farming schemes are the last thing the industry needs.” The sustainable farming incentive was closed in March.
Many farmers are struggling to break even and some blame environmental policies, but Lancaster said: “The evidence suggests that climate impacts are what’s actually driving issues of profitability, certainly in the arable sector, as opposed to policy change. Without reaching net zero emission there is no way to limit the impacts making food production in the UK ever more difficult.”
David Lord, an arable farmer from Essex, said: “As a farmer, I’m used to taking the rough with the smooth, but recent years have seen near constant extreme rainfall, heat and drought. It’s getting to the point with climate change where I can’t take the risk of investing in a new crop of wheat or barley because the return on that investment is just so uncertain.
“Green farming schemes are a vital lifeline for me, helping build my resilience to these shocks whilst providing cashflow to help buffer me financially.”
Green farming approaches include planting winter cover crops. These increase resilience by boosting the organic content of soil, meaning it can retain water better during droughts. Cover crops can also help break up compacted soil, allowing it to drain better during wet periods.
The ECIU analysis used production data for England published in October and current grain prices and then extrapolated it to the UK as a whole, a method shown to be reliable in previous years. Since 2020, which was the worst harvest on record, lost revenue associated with the impact of extreme weather is now more than £2bn for UK arable farmers. Grain prices are set globally, so low harvests in the UK do not translate in the market to higher prices.
The link between worsening extreme weather and global heating is increasingly clear. The Met Office said the UK summer of 2025 was the hottest in more than a century of records and was made 70 times more probable because of the climate crisis. Global heating also made the severe rainfall in the winter storms of 2023-24 about 20% heavier.
“This year’s harvest was extremely challenging,” said Jamie Burrows, the chair of the National Farmers’ Union combinable crops board. “Growing crops in the UK isn’t easy due to the unpredictable weather we are seeing more of. Funding is needed for climate adaptation and resilient crop varieties to safeguard our ability to feed the nation.”
The price of some foods hit by extreme weather are rising more than four times faster than others in the average shop, the ECIU reported in October. It found the price of butter, beef, milk, coffee and chocolate had risen by an average of 15.6% over the year, compared with 2.8% for other food and drink.
Drought in the UK led to poor grass growth, hitting butter and beef production, while extreme heat and rain in west Africa pushed up cocoa prices and droughts in Brazil and Vietnam led to a surge in coffee prices.
A spokesperson for the Department of Environment, Food and Rural Affairs said farmers were stewards of the nation’s food security. “We know there are challenges in the sector and weather extremes have affected harvests,” she said. “We are backing our farmers in the face of a changing climate with the largest nature-friendly farming budget in history to grow their businesses and get more British food on our plates.”
