Farming community responds to warning that food production faces growing risk

With the Climate Change Committee’s (CCC) stark warning that over half of England’s top-quality agricultural land is at risk of flooding, the NFU is now calling on the government to prioritise investment in water management in the upcoming Spending Review.

In its latest adaptation progress report, the CCC has made a worrying assessment that the UK is not appropriately prepared for greater and more regular weather extremes, which is likely to put both homegrown food production and the UK’s biodiversity at risk.

The National Audit Office Resilience to Flooding report identified a continuous shortfall in Environment Agency flooding maintenance funding, and rural areas felt the devastating impact of this throughout 2024 as farmers were hit by relentless rain in one of the wettest years on record.

Even now, many farms affected are still trying to recover from the damage to their land and their businesses.

NFU said that this is why the union members are asking the chancellor in her spending review to establish a long-term investment plan to improve the UK’s failing flooding infrastructure, with funding allocations which recognise rural needs.

‘Climate extremes are not going away’

NFU president Tom Bradshaw said: “The impact of climate change is clear for all to see. Last year we experienced one of the most challenging growing seasons in living memory, with thousands of acres of farmland under water early in the year. Even now, more than 12 months on and during the warmest week of the year so far, farm businesses are still working to recover.

“Not only does flooding cause significant damage to people’s properties and livelihoods, it also puts the UK’s food production at risk. Last year’s wheat harvest was one of the worst in 20 years. At a time when global food supply chains are far from stable, we have to do what we can to protect and boost homegrown food production.

“Recovering from flood damage comes at a huge cost to the taxpayer. Climate extremes are not going away, and we need to be investing in the maintenance and expansion of our flooding defences now to minimise damage in the future.”

In the previous government’s response to the CCC’s 2023 report, it focused on the Environmental Land Management (ELM) schemes as the key way to mitigate flood risk for farm businesses.

However, with the sudden closure of the Sustainable Farming Incentive earlier this year due to budget limitations, which shut off access to the scheme for thousands of businesses overnight, the NFU is highlighting critical gaps in government policy and funding which urgently need addressing.

Mr Bradshaw added: “This is a clear example of where policies and budgets need to be much more joined up, something the CCC also highlights in its report. In 2023 the government said the best way farmers could adapt their businesses to a changing climate was through the SFI scheme, but then this year it shut up shop.

“Everything comes back to sufficient funding. We need an agricultural budget which allows more farm businesses to take these important measures through the SFI, and a nationwide flooding investment plan which recognises rural needs to make the UK more resilient to any extreme weather that comes our way.”

‘A wake-up call for policymakers, land managers, and public alike’

Scientists at Rothamsted’s North Wyke Farm Platform in Devon, Britain’s most monitored farm, have found that even well-managed grazing and arable systems are struggling to withstand modern winter wet weather extremes, leading to dramatically increased sediment loss from fields into rivers.

Professor Adie Collins, lead author of the study, said: “These results highlight the fragility of even our best-managed agricultural systems in the face of increasingly extreme winter wet weather.

He added that the findings raise serious questions about the long-term sustainability of current farming practices in a changing climate.

Elevated soil erosion not only depletes farm productivity but also chokes rivers and reservoirs with sediment, damaging habitats, worsening flooding, and increasing water treatment costs.

As climate patterns shift, experts warn that a failure to adapt land management practices could see these impacts intensify and become more pervasive.

Professor Collins says these findings should serve as a wake-up call for policymakers, land managers, and the public alike. “We urgently need to rethink how we manage agricultural land in the UK if we want to protect the essential ecosystem services that farmland provides,” he concluded.

‘It is shocking how unprepared we are’

Martin Lines, CEO of the Nature Friendly Farming Network (NFFN), added that these “alarming findings” are not surprising for many British farmers who are on the front line of the climate crisis and have seen weather patterns and their ability to produce food changing in front of their eyes.

“It is shocking how unprepared we are for a future of extreme temperatures, rainfall and droughts, given how long scientists have been warning us about it.

“Ministers must urgently grasp the seriousness of this report and the scale of the effect on farming. Without putting nature and climate mitigation at the heart of food production, food security and the long-term future of farms will be impossible to secure.”

Mr Lines added that the farmers need funding that is focused on delivering public goods for public money and developing farm resilience.

“Fortunately, nature-friendly farming provides solutions to many of the problems outlined by the committee, from natural flooding solutions to providing shelter to cope with extreme heat. The government must recognise that an immediate, widespread transition to nature-friendly farming practices is the only way forward,” he concluded.

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