Farmer's yield concerns after no 'meaningful rain'

Farmers in Kent say they are facing reduced yields at their next harvest due to exceptionally dry weather.

The Environment Agency warned in May that, although there was not currently a drought in England, there was a "medium risk of one this summer".

The UK is on course for its driest spring in over a century and April 2025 was the sunniest on record.

Andy Barr, an arable farmer in the village of Lenham, said his crops "haven't had any meaningful rain for three or four weeks now".

Mr Barr said he was concerned that his plants were shorter, paler and already developing ears of grain, which he would not expect to see "for a couple of weeks".

"The plant is telling me it's under stress, it can't take up the nutrients it wants, it's thinking, 'I'm going to die soon, I better produce some seeds'," he said.

"That means less yield for us at the end of the day."

Dry weather has contributed to the area of the UK burnt by wildfires already reaching a higher level than the total for any year in more than a decade.

On one day in March, Kent Fire & Rescue Service was called to three wildfires in one day.

Mr Barr said he lost crops to fire in 2022.

"The flames were higher than me. It was noisy as you can imagine, and it looked so ferocious I thought we were never going to put it out," he said.

The farmer is urging members of the public to think carefully about disposing of rubbish.

He added: "The fire brigade thought it could have been something as simple as a bottle discarded months earlier, but because the sun got so intense and everything was so dry, it just caught light and literally set fire to 50 acres of crop."

The dry weather is set to continue in the short term, according to BBC South East weather presenter Nina Ridge.

She said: "The next seven days look as if they're going to be dry, but there are increasing signs that at the end of next week the jet stream will move further south and we'll see low pressure systems bringing us some significant rain for the end of May."

The prolonged dry weather is linked to what are called "blocking highs" when a high pressure weather system becomes stuck.

Scientists do not know if this blocked pattern is linked to climate change.

Global warming is expected to cause more extreme weather events globally.

Studies about our future climate suggest more and longer periods of dry weather as well as periods of less rainfall in the UK. Winters are likely to be wetter and warmer.

That could exacerbate other forms of drought like hydrological or agricultural drought, according to the Met Office.

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