Confirmed: England has second worst harvest on record with fears mounting for 2025

“This year’s harvest was a shocker, and climate change is to blame. Whilst shoppers have been partly insulated by imports picking up some of the slack, Britain’s farmers have borne the brunt of the second worst harvest on record.

“It is clear that climate change is the biggest threat to UK food security. And these impacts are only going to get worse until we reduce our greenhouse gas emissions to net zero, in order to stop the warming that is driving these extremes.

“At the Budget this month the new government has the opportunity to invest in more sustainable farming that would build our food security resilience to these extremes. The alternative is to allow the effects of these climate impacts to worsen in the years ahead.”

An analysis by World Weather Attribution (WWA) found that storm rainfall was made 20% heavier by climate change, and the volume of rainfall between October 2023 and March 2024 was made four times more likely [6].

The English wheat harvest is estimated to be 10m tonnes or 21% down on 2023. Winter barley was 26% down on last year, and the oilseed rape harvest was down 32%. Compared to the five year average, the oilseed rape harvest was down by 38%. In total, the harvest for wheat, winter and spring barley, oats and oilseed rape was down by 15% on 2023 and 18% on the five year average, with increases in spring barley and oat production failing to offset major declines in the other crops.

For many farmers in England, the drilling season this year has got off to an even worse start than 2023 following record breaking rain across much of southern, central and eastern England.

Colin Chappell, an arable farmer in Lincolnshire said: "We are now on a knife edge. Last week we had almost two inches of rain within 36 hours here and we're not the worst off. Some farms in southern England have lost their crops for the second year in a row. Many will now be relying on spring wheat once again this year, which only produces about half as much as winter wheat.

"We're getting into a situation where autumn planting is becoming unviable due to flooding and spring planting is risky because of drought. It is causing a lot of nervousness and uncertainty. Farmers are going to need support to see them through this and ensure they are resilient in the future. This is certainly not the time to cut the agriculture budget, this is the time to redouble our efforts and invest in policies that boost farming's resilience, both environmentally and financially.”