Half the harvest, twice the bills: how drought hit farms

The hottest summer on record, the longest drought, the worst harvest. West Country farmers are counting the cost of a "terrible summer", as one put it.

The wheat harvest on Charles Day's family farm in Gloucestershire was cut in half. "It's just soul-destroying," he says.

Dairy farmers had to rip open silage clamps stored up for the winter to feed the cattle as the grass failed. Sarah Godwin calculates it cost her family's Wiltshire farm "over £100,000". She says "it's shocking".

I spent the summer watching farmers install showers for cows, watch their cauliflowers burn to a crisp in the heat, and search for apples in cider orchards reduced to a tenth of their normal crop.

So now the harvest is home, just how bad was it?

Buy a loaf of bread and there's a good chance it started in the fields of Charles Day's family farm in north Gloucestershire.

"I love harvest," the fourth generation farmer tells me. "It's a whole year's work coming to fruition."

But 2026 was brutal. The crops were looking "fantastic" in April, he told me. Then in June, the rain stopped and "the sun just stole our yield".

Throughout the crucial weeks of June and July, there was no rain at all. Wheat grains shrivelled instead of fattening, and the yield plummeted.

Official figures estimate the total UK cereal harvest was the lowest on record, wheat down about three million tonnes, or 11% according to the Agricultural and Horticultural Development Board (AHDB).

Anthony Hopkins, AHDB director of cereals and oilseeds, says: "At a time of high input costs, arable farmers in the worst-affected areas are really feeling the financial pressure right now."

But in the South West, it was much hotter and the impact far worse.

When the combines went out on Charles Day's family farm, they gathered a harvest "about 50% down, sometimes more".

"It's just soul-destroying," he adds.

Across the South West, Tom Collins, who speaks for the NFU in Wiltshire, says most cereal farmers had seen harvests down "at least 30%". Spring barley and beans were more than 50% down, he adds, particularly badly hit by the drought.

"Most farmers will give this harvest 3 out of 10", he adds. "They're pretty depressed."

Put some butter on your bread, or cheese, and that is probably from the West Country's other farmers - dairy producers.

But unlike the wheat harvest, the amount of milk produced this summer barely fell. Total production is down just 4.5%, according to the ADHB.

"That's because we have to feed our cows, and milk them, whatever the weather," explains Sarah Godwin.

Her family raise dairy cows west of Chippenham, selling their milk to a major supermarket.

The Cotswolds was badly hit by the drought, leaving grazing pastures brown and without any nutrition for the cows. So like many farmers, the Godwins had to open their sileage planned for the winter and buy in feed to boost their cows diets.

"Altogether it cost us around £100,000," Godwin explains. "We also had a drop in production yields, that's around £20,000.

"On top of that, cows suffered more lameness, lower fertility, more mastitis. They really did not enjoy the heat."

The family spent £15,000 installing new sprinkler systems and huge fans to cool the cattle in their sheds when they sheltered from the heat outside. All vital for animal welfare, but more costs to the business.

Even the normally lush fields of Somerset withered in the heat. Tom Kimber's family have farmed near Charlton Musgrove in south Somerset, in the heart of England's most productive grazing land. They run 250 dairy cows on their own grass, cutting sileage for the winter months.

By September, they would normally have three large clamps of sileage ready for winter. This year, they have only cut two, and had to raid one throughout July and August, to make up for the lack of grass.

But sadly, Tom Kimber is getting used to what was once freak weather.

"This is the fourth drought in eight years now, so you barely financially get over the last one and you're hit with another one. It's becoming far more frequent, these events.

"It's incredibly difficult this constant lurching between one extreme to the other, that's what keeps you awake at night."

Climate scientists are clear that weather like this is the new normal.

"What we used to think of as extreme weather, we increasingly consider as normal," says Mike Kendon, a climate scientist at the Met Office.

So what can farmers do about it?

In Gloucestershire, Charles Day's family have a rare asset: a lake. Fed by a local river, it fills through the winter and then can be used in the summer. They grow salad onions, broccoli and other vegetables on fields nearby, all irrigated by the lake water.

The family wants to expand the lake, hold more water, do their bit to turn winter floods into summer irrigation.

"But it's so complicated," Day explains. "The red tape, the planning, the licences, the digging - it will be very expensive. And we just get no help from government."

New Prime Minister Andy Burnham announced in the summer a package of support measures including grant funding to construct reservoirs and irrigation infrastructure.

"I hope it helps," Day adds.

Others are trying to farm in a more nature friendly way. Planting mixed grasses which cope better with drought. More trees to provide shade, older varieties of cereals that withstand heat better.

All these cost money, and there are government schemes to support them. But when the latest round of financing opened, it was overwhelmed.

A year's worth of government grants, more than £250m, was handed out in under six hours in an online scramble "reminiscent of Glastonbury ticket sales", as Wiltshire farmer Tom Collins put it.

"It just shows how desperate farmers are," he adds.

"It's so hard to make a living from food people fall over themselves to get these environmental grants, and then they're swallowed up in no time. It's so unfair."

A spokesperson for the Department of Environment, Food and Rural Affairs says: "In anticipation of high demand, ministers decided to allocate an additional £20m to the fund, on top the £50m announced by the prime minister in August, so that we could fund as many agreements as possible."

Farming Minister Stephen Morgan adds that the Sustainable Farming Incentive had been designed to be simpler to apply for and that farmers had "responded in force".

Tom Kimber was one of those who missed out. He went online to apply for an extension of an environmental scheme his farm was already running.

"We plant a mix of different grasses that cope better in the drought," he explains. "But they cost more, so we need the grant."

A glitch in the Defra computer system left him locked out of the website for hours. When he got back in, the money had all gone.

Farming, he says, is not easy at the moment.

"When you're being squeezed from both ends, the milk price is 10p litre below the cost of production, and costs are going up all the time.

"You're just forever hoping for a better day, but hope doesn't keep you in business."

Follow BBC Wiltshire on Facebook, X and Instagram. Send your story ideas to us on email or via WhatsApp on 0800 313 4630.