Thinking of our farmers

As I write, England has recently sweltered under a record-smashing May heatwave, the culmination of a drier-than-usual spring.

Heather Oldfield, South Lincolnshire National Farmers Union County Chairman, showed Radio 4’s Farming Today her “stressed” winter wheat, and her “patchy” spring barley, and wonders whether she’ll even be planting a spring crop next year. Meanwhile, at Low Sizergh farm in Cumbria, panting cattle and sheep sought respite in the shade.

The problem isn’t so much the heat, as the unpredictability. This spring is hot, last year was a drought, but the one before was the wettest for 70 years. What to plant – drought resistant or flood resistant – and when? What breeds of livestock to keep? How to afford irrigation investment, and is it even viable? Farmers, incredibly resilient as they are, have always had to deal with variable weather. So we’d be fools not to pay attention when they say weather patterns are changing, becoming more erratic, more unpredictable. That it’s becoming more difficult to reliably grow food here.