Britain’s Vegetables Set to Shrink and Cost More as Drought Grips Farms – NATIONAL NEWS

Britain’s farmers are warning that this year’s harvest could be the worst in living memory, with the driest conditions in nearly two centuries pushing supermarkets towards smaller vegetables and higher prices, a phenomenon known as shrinkflation.

England and Wales have just recorded their driest July in 190 years of Met Office records, and drought has now been formally declared across large swathes of the country. Half of England and the whole of Wales are currently classed as being in drought by the Environment Agency, with Wales receiving only 8% of its usual rainfall this month and England as little as 1% in the south.

Analysis from the Energy and Climate Intelligence Unit suggests the UK’s combined cereals and oilseed harvest will fall roughly 2.5 million tonnes short of earlier forecasts, landing at around 19.5 million tonnes, the lowest total since comparable records began in 1984. That would edge out the previous low point of 19.8 million tonnes set in 2020 and could strip an estimated £390 million from farmers’ incomes.

Barley, oats and rapeseed, staples used in everything from beer and breakfast cereal to vegetable oil and animal feed, have been hit hardest, meaning the shortfall is likely to ripple through the wider food chain.

Tim O’Malley, chairman of the wholesaler Nationwide Produce, described conditions as among the toughest he has seen, telling BBC Radio 5 Live’s Wake Up to Money that shrinkflation looked increasingly likely this year. He said stressed and poor quality crops meant produce coming off British farms would simply be smaller than usual, and that supermarkets would try to hold prices steady before eventually being forced to raise them, particularly as more stock has to be imported.

That shift towards imports is already under way. Grocers are bringing in broccoli and iceberg lettuce from Spain at a time of year when British supplies would normally suffice, something O’Malley called highly unusual for August. Other reporting this week suggests wholesale prices for some vegetables have already climbed sharply, with tomatoes up more than 60%, iceberg lettuce up around 90% and potatoes up more than 40% amid the wider European heatwave.

Farmers are drawing on stored winter rainfall and abstraction from rivers and groundwater to keep crops alive, but both sources have come under strain this summer. Higher temperatures and repeated heatwaves have also increased evaporation, further reducing river flows.

Tom Lancaster, a land, food and farming analyst at the ECIU, said farmers had entered spring hopeful of a better year, only for a dry April and July, combined with record breaking heat, to leave them facing a third poor harvest in a row. He said farming was now the sector most exposed to the risks of climate change.

Martin Lines, head of the Nature Friendly Farming Network and a farmer in Cambridgeshire, said crops had looked promising coming out of spring before months of drought and heat took their toll. He said even farmers who had previously doubted the scale of climate change were now voicing serious concern about the future of their businesses.

Separately, the Agriculture and Horticulture Development Board has reported that this year’s harvest is the earliest since its records began two decades ago, with many farms in southern and eastern England finishing two to three weeks ahead of schedule as growers race to bring in crops before further heat and dryness take hold. Cereal yields are running below the ten year average, and industry figures have warned that financial pressure on already stretched farm businesses is becoming increasingly severe.

Scientists say the pattern fits a broader trend, with climate change expected to bring more frequent, more severe and longer lasting heatwaves to UK summers in the years ahead, raising the prospect of further water shortages for agriculture.