Following one of the driest summers in living memory and the third warmest July on record, UK agricultural representatives met this week with government officials at a drought summit hosted by the National Farmers' Union (NFU) in London.
After attending the event, Defra secretary Michael Gove promised to “make sure farmers have what they need in order to provide us with high-quality food and ensure their businesses survive”.
Farmers, including fruit and vegetable producers, have reported a drop in harvests and yields as a result of the dry conditions, and the NFU is calling for “urgent action” to assist farmers.
The Environment Agency, which oversees water use, said that farmers would be allowed some short-term flexibility within their water abstraction licences.
'We must also balance farmers' needs with those of wildlife and other water users so we will only allow these arrangements where we are satisfied there won't be any adverse effects on the environment,' said Paul Hickey, head of water resources at the agency.
Gove said that the government wanted to be flexible and would not allow bureaucracy to prevent farmers getting the support they needed.
It was crucial, he said, to support future food production and 'ensure we can improve and enhance our resilience against the challenge of climate change'.
According to climate scientists, the heatwave conditions witnessed in Europe in recent weeks were made twice as likely by climate change, with more prolonged hot spells expected in the UK in the future.
NFU president Minette Batters, who chaired the summit, said it was too soon to know if poor harvests would lead to higher prices for consumers. She emphasised the need for future policies to address not just environmental concerns, but also market volatility.
“We would all like to farm without support but the reason why governments across the world do support agriculture is to deal with market failure and volatility – to ultimately keep food prices affordable and to avoid price spikes,” said Batters.
'Today's summit was a wake-up call to government and policy makers about the importance of British food production and the critical need to manage the volatility that comes with it,” she added.
