Over 240 million litres of milk lost in record summer heat

On 87 days this summer, deliveries fell further below their expected level than on any equivalent date between 2008 and 2025, including every single day of July and August. The pattern deepened as the summer progressed: 25 days in June, then all 31 in both July and August.

Tom Cantillon, Senior Analyst at the Energy and Climate Intelligence Unit (ECIU) said, “For months, UK dairy farms produced below a normal summer, and by August the scale of the impact was regularly worse than anything seen in 18 years. The missing £83 million from farmers’ pockets has gone in a year when many were already milking at a loss [2].

“The costs don’t stop now that the rain has come. A second bad year for grass has pushed farmers into their winter forage early, with feed prices to follow. Farmers need help to build resilience — shade, trees, water — but summers like this will keep getting worse until we cut emissions to net zero and bring the climate back into balance.”

Grass growth for the season to date as of September 4 stands at 86% of the 2019-2024 average, with the lost growth to date enough to feed the national cattle herd for two months. With four fifths of a normal season’s growth already over, this gap is unlikely to be closed. Many farmers have already begun feeding winter feed to cattle, leaving them more exposed to hay, silage and other feed prices in the winter, as they are forced to supplement their winter feed stores [3]. With hay prices last winter rising by 83% December to December due to drought, the conditions are in place for a similar price spike to occur again.  

Debbie Wilkins, a dairy and beef farmer in Gloucestershire [4], said “This has been a difficult summer. Our milk production has dropped significantly, though as we've just established a new herd it is harder to compare. Building up our herd again has actually helped us this year, because our stocking levels are lower than normal so we've been able to make more silage than we otherwise would. That has been really important because the cows have been eating full winter rations in the middle of summer, and even with the recent grass growth they're really only going out to stretch their legs.  

"We've been able to produce enough food for the winter, though the situation is still not ideal because cows eating grass in fields is far cheaper than paying contractors to make silage and then dealing with the costs and labour of maintaining slurry stores, cleaning out sheds, changing bedding and so on. The costs pile up when you have to bring the cows indoors, and the loss of milk production compounds the issue."

There are signs that the forage season is already forcing difficult decisions by farmers. Recent reports tell of cattle culls increasing in drought-stricken areas, as farmers seek to reduce feed demand [5]. GB prices for cull cows have reduced by almost 10% in recent weeks, while throughput rose 16%. Selling breeding stock early cuts winter feed bills but means fewer calves in future, adding to the long-term shrinkage of the UK herd. 

Ruth Grice, a dairy farmer in Leicestershire [6] said, "It has been a very challenging summer. Dairy farmers have been hit by a double whammy of significant increases in operational costs, while milk prices remained really low as a hangover from the enormous volumes of milk produced last year and at the start of this year. Housing cows indoors was, for some, the only way to deal with the impact of the extreme heat. But this increased costs and requires a lot more labour. It also takes its toll on farm workers as no-one wants to be going into winter routines in the middle of summer. At our farm, we brought our cows indoors in mid-August and they were only able to go out again recently, now the grass has started to grow again.

"It’s an incredibly volatile time to be a UK dairy farmer, as there are so many more climate unknowns than there were even five years ago. You have to be so careful with your forage management, and you need to produce more winter feed than previously, developing that mentality of having extra, 'just in case' of another drought. At the same time, you need a plan for dealing with the impacts of severe downpours during the winter months.

"Longer term, last year’s record levels of milk production do point to a good news story for our industry. Underpinned by ever-improving genetics, we know that the UK dairy herd can produce more, high-quality milk from fewer cows. This has the potential to further lower carbon emissions and ease pressure on land use."