Failed wheat and hungry cows: Farmers calculate the cost of a wet winter

Up to a quarter of the UK’s wheat crop will be lost this year after the wettest winter since records began, according to the National Farmers’ Union (NFU).

Persistent rain either left the seeds rotting in the field or made it impossible to get tractors onto the land to sow.

Wiltshire farmer Mike Wilkins has lost half of the wheat he has sown this year.

“If we don’t lose, it will be a miracle,” he said.

Wiltshire NFU president Tom Collins said the UK would have to import more wheat, “and that will drive up the prices of bread, cakes and loads of other things”.

On the Wiltshire Downs, near Calne, Mr Wilkins farms with his mother, father and sister. Their farm is 650 meters high with impressive views.

But while walking in a wheat field, we have to pass by a pretty good sized pond.

“There’s never any water here in May,” Mr Wilkins points out.

“This started flooding last August and it doesn’t look like it’s going to dry up anytime soon.”

Half the field still has wheat, but it’s in bad shape, with weeds dotted everywhere.

“We haven’t been able to take care of it, we just haven’t been able to get a tractor on this field for weeks,” Mr Wilkins said.

But at least there is some wheat growing. The other half of the field has tiny bean sprouts that will eventually grow into much cheaper cattle feed.

Here the winter wheat, sown in the fall of 2023, drowned under the long winter rains.

“How do you see him dying,” reflected Mr. Wilkins sadly.

“You put so much effort into planting it, and the money you spend, and then it just disappears. And you have to start over, knowing that this will earn you much less.”

His family has farmed here for nearly a century, but no one can remember ever losing so much wheat to the weather.

Between October 2022 and March 2024, England had 1,695.9 mm of rainfall, the wettest 18-month period since records began in 1836.

Mr Collins, the county chairman of the NFU, told me their experience was bad but not unique.

“Countywide we lost about 15 percent of all our wheat,” he said.

“The UK as a whole is bigger than that, probably 25% down, a quarter down.”

That means the UK will be short of around four million tonnes of wheat. The deficit will be made up with more imports, which will cost more, he said.

Farmers are keen to point out that the wet winter is not only hitting their pockets, but will push up the price of bread and everyday staples just as food inflation was starting to ease.

And, Mr Collins explains, there is much more to wheat than bread and cakes.

“Wheat is in sausages, it’s in cosmetics, even paracetamol. So it’s not just food prices that will go up, the wider economy will be affected,” he said.

Down on the Somerset Levels I returned to a farm I had visited at the height of the winter floods.

In February, cattle farmer Mike Curtis showed me his fields, six feet under water.

He had 200 acres of pasture flooded for about three months.

Now the fields are green again, but when Mr. Curtis pulls me out with his tractor, he has a bale of silage in front of him.

“We’re getting cattle feed even though it’s the end of May,” he said.

“We’re not supposed to do this until October, but the grass is so poor we have to supplement their feed.”

When the tractor arrives, the cattle are galloping across the grass. Dozens crowd around the feeder as the silo tumbles off its forks, jostling to get to it.

Mr. Curtis said he should keep this silo for the winter, but he has no choice.

Even worse, the farm is not producing new grass to make silage to replace it.

He would normally keep 100 acres of pasture to cut and wrap in the familiar black plastic, ready for winter.

But this year, his cattle will have to eat everything that grows.

“For the last 20 years we’ve kept 600 cattle on this farm. We’re already at 450 and by winter we’ll be down to 300. And that obviously cuts the business in half,” Mr Curtis said.

Bread, beef, butter, cheese, milk, even cosmetics will cost more to produce because the harvest is short this summer.

Politicians like to talk about “bread and butter issues”. Our climate change is literally getting like this.