Farmers warn of record wheat shortfall after wettest spring on record
Yields down by a fifth across the east of England; millers already importing from France and Canada
Britain's wheat harvest will be the smallest in a generation after the wettest spring on record left fields unsown or waterlogged, the farmers' union has warned.
Yields across the east of England, the country's grain belt, are down by about a fifth. Millers have already begun importing from France and Canada to keep flour prices stable.
“We had fields we could not get a tractor onto until May,” said James Oakley, who farms 600 hectares in Lincolnshire. “That is not a bad year. That is a year that did not happen.”
Climate scientists said the pattern of wetter winters and springs was consistent with projections for the UK, and that farmers would need to adapt crop choices and drainage over the coming decade.
