Record wet spring weather and low prices leave farmers ‘on the brink’

British farmers are considering walking away from their farms as the recent record run of wet weather has left the sector “on the brink”, industry bodies warned yesterday.

The Agriculture and Horticulture Development Board (AHDB) and the Soil Association charity raised concerns over the perilous situation facing many in their industry, with profits being squeezed and extreme weather driven by the climate crisis putting financial and mental strain on farm owners.

Helen Browning, the chief executive of the Soil Association, said: “A lot of farmers are really considering their options and thinking about walking away from their farms, as they could make far more money doing something else.”

Browning, who runs a livestock and arable farm in Wiltshire, added: “If you were economically rational, you wouldn’t farm.”

The comments from the industry bodies came during a briefing run by the Energy and Climate Intelligence Unit thinktank ahead of the second annual Farm to Fork summit that will be hosted by Rishi Sunak at No 10 next week.

The summit is expected to discuss the country’s future food security against the backdrop of extreme wet weather that has affected four in five farms in the past 12 months.

Tom Clarke, a board member at the AHDB, said the biggest effect on farms this year had been the poor weather, with many farmers planting fewer crops, or no crops at all, due to fields being flooded.

“It’s been a hell of a year, I think farmers across the UK are really on the brink, not only mentally but financially and ecologically as well.”

Clarke, who farms wheat, sugar beets and other combinable crops in Cambridgeshire, said the rain meant some of his fields did not have crops for the first time in decades, while a large percentage of those planted were in bad condition.

The AHDB’s arable crop report for April showed that only 45% of winter wheat was rated as being in good or excellent condition, well below the 88% in the same period last year.

Clarke also pointed to the phasing out of EU subsidies as another challenge faced by farmers. The payments were supposed to be replaced by the government’s sustainable farming incentive subsidies, but the rollout of these has been delayed.