Climate change is increasing the risk to British farming - Yorkshire Post Letters

From: Sue Nicholson, Sidmouth.

While much of the climate debate focuses on emissions targets and energy bills, one consequence is playing out on our own doorstep: the increasing risk to British farming.

Recent years have brought a run of extremes. The sodden winters have left fields too wet to drill, followed by droughts that scorch cereal yields. The National Farmers' Union's ten-year weather survey found that volatility from extreme weather is costing farm businesses an average of more than £40,000 each. For farms already operating on wafer-thin margins, one failed harvest can be absorbed. Two or three in a row can’t.

The financial consequences ripple beyond the farm gate. Lenders assess agricultural land partly on its productive capacity; land that repeatedly fails to deliver a harvest becomes harder to value and riskier to lend against. Farmers are already reporting tightening credit conditions, with banks demanding higher rates or extra security as weather losses erode confidence in future income. Land values are no longer immune to climate risk.

Insurance tells the same story. Crop insurers, reading the same data as everyone else, are recalculating premiums upward or withdrawing cover from the highest-risk land - leaving farmers exposed precisely when they need protection most.

The NFU is raising the alarm, calling for investment in water resilience and adaptation funding. But warnings only go so far without action. If we want a farming sector that can still feed the country in 20 years, climate action must be treated as basic economic self-preservation, not an optional extra.