Grass growth halves as drought leaves farmers facing a shortage of feed — analysis

According to data from the Agriculture and Horticulture Development Board (AHDB), grass grew close to normal through spring and early summer, with cumulative growth to the end of June standing at 97% of the recent average and running ahead of the 2025 drought year. The turn came in a single week in July, when growth fell from 94% of the average in the week ending 3 July to 63% a week later, leaving the season to date at 90% of average by the end of July as rainfall all but stopped. In the week ending 21 July, less than a millimetre of rain fell anywhere in England, leaving month-to-date rainfall at just 3% of the long-term average. Soil moisture deficits hit record levels for the time of year across north-east, central, south-east and south-west England [2].

The timing compounds the damage. Grass growth falls away naturally from late summer onwards, so a shortfall banked in July cannot be made up the way a spring deficit can. ECIU's projections show the 2026 season ending between 77% and 86% of the recent average, with a central case of 81% — a shortfall of around 2,200 kg of dry matter per hectare. On a dairy cow's intake of 15 to 18 kg of dry matter a day, that is around four months' feed for one cow lost from every hectare of grassland [3].

Tom Cantillon, Senior Analyst – Carbon and Land at the Energy and Climate Intelligence Unit (ECIU) said, "Grass is the cheapest feed British livestock farmers have, and this summer it has fallen to half its normal rate. Two short forage years back-to-back is a different proposition to one. Farmers went into this summer carrying the costs of last year’s drought, and this will exacerbate the pressures they face.

"What we are looking at is not a bad week or a difficult month, but a structural squeeze on the foundation of grass-fed farming in this country. Hotter, drier summers are exactly what the climate projections describe, and a farming system built around reliable rainfall is going to feel that first and hardest. Only by cutting emissions to net zero and bringing the climate back into balance will we avoid these kinds of situations worsening in the future. Without it, the grass-based farming that Britain prides itself on will become increasingly precarious, leaving us more reliant on imported feed."
 
Even under the most optimistic scenario modelled, in which growth returns to normal by the end of the season, 2026 finishes at 86% of average. That is no better than 2025, itself a drought year, at 87%. This leaves livestock farmers heading into a second consecutive winter of tight forage, starting from stocks already drawn down.

The effects of this summers’ drought and exceptional heatwaves are already visible in output. Separate ECIU analysis found that UK milk deliveries fell by 25 million pints across the May and June heatwaves [4].

Holly Purdey, a farmer from Somerset, said, "There's been no regrowth on our hay fields at all, so we can't wean lambs onto them the way we normally would. Our only natural water source has dried up and the water bill has gone through the roof. We're eating into grazing we'd normally save for later, so we'll be feeding hay for longer this winter as well."

Jo Coates, a farmer from the Yorkshire Dales, said, "We ran out of water in last year's drought, so in January we put in a water bladder to try and future-proof the place. It's the only reason we've been able to keep moving cattle around this summer. Water security and winter forage are my two biggest worries."

Sam Kenyon, a farmer from Denbighshire, said, "I'm feeding sheep in July, which has been unheard-of for this place, and there’ll be no second cut of forage to sell in order to help balance the expense. Rotational grazing has thankfully bought me four to six weeks more grazing than if I had set stocked”

Rhodri Lloyd-Williams, a farmer from North Ceredigion, said, "We're massively down on silage because the grass hasn't grown. The boreholes we've put in have helped enormously in allowing us to rotationally graze the cattle, and the trees we've planted are giving the stock shade they didn't used to have."

Past droughts show how the costs mount. Research by Salmoral et al. (2020) [5] found drought impacts running through feed and fodder availability, animal productivity and welfare, farm economics and farmer wellbeing, with farmers having to stretch available grazing, sell livestock to cut feed demand, and buy in feed. A year after the 2018 drought, two-thirds of surveyed livestock farmers were still experiencing or expecting a forage shortage, of those, two-thirds had bought in fodder and half had sold off stock [6].

A 2018 Scottish Government assessment estimated that a typical 110-cow upland suckler herd faced around £8,000 in additional costs from extended housing and higher straw prices — equivalent to a potential 19% reduction in beef enterprise gross margin. It put the cost to Scotland's livestock sector at around £5 million for every additional week that stock were housed [7], suggesting the costs of this summers’ drought for Britain’s livestock farmers have only just begun.