Call for support as farms face £83m summer dairy shortfall
Farmers’ leaders have renewed their call for support to improve resilience in the face of climate change as it emerged 240 million fewer litres of milk than expected were produced on British dairy farms this summer as record heat and drought put production under severe pressure.
East Yorkshire dairy farmer and NFU deputy president Paul Tompkins said while the milk price had seen some improvements, many farmers are continuing to produce milk at below the cost of production.
The Energy and Climate Intelligence Unit estimates the shortfall was worth more than £83 million to farmers and amounted to over four days of normal summer milk production.
Analyst for the unit, Tom Cantillon, said: “The missing £83 million from farmers’ pockets has gone in a year when many were already milking at a loss.”
The reduction in yield is due to the drought having an impact, but the rising on-farm input costs, and in particular feed, has also played a role.
The consequences of the dry summer in Yorkshire looks certain to continue to be felt, with some farmers having started using winter forage after a year in which grass growth dropped to just 86 per cent of the average for the five years to 2024.
However, ahead of the summer York and North Yorkshire Mayor David Skaith visited a dairy farm in Kilburn with Mr Tompkins and pledged to do his utmost “to take those challenges straight to government”. Mr Tompkins said: “We can’t go into every headwind, whether it be a hot summer or cold, wet winter, geopolitical event, Trump announcement, policy change by government, without trying to be more resilient, and that’s what I think we need to focus on for the future.
"We’re told these weather events are going to become more frequent and extreme so we need to find ways to make sure our food system is resilient to them.”
Mr Tompkins said multiple measures would be needed to enable farms to operate in an era of more frequent extreme weather events. Earlier this month, the NFU released a Dairy Roadmap report setting out the action needed to accelerate environmental progress while safeguarding food security, nutrition and rural economies. It focuses on proven actions, targeted investment and shared responsibility across the dairy supply chain, while highlighting the importance of a supportive regulatory and investment environment to enable farmers to deliver further progress. Slurry management and storage is identified in the Dairy Roadmap as a particular priority, with investment in infrastructure offering benefits for greenhouse gas emissions as well as air and water quality.
Mr Tompkins said: "What I do know is those measures will likely come at cost and additional risk to farmers and I think they’re up for the challenge, but I also think they’ll be a lot more achievable if governments, supply chains, water companies, banks and processors are part of that agenda too.
"Commodity markets operate in a way I’m going to be unable to change. Of course it’s unfair that farmers carry an unfair burden of the risk, and that should be shared by more, but it’s not a quandry we’ve yet been able to get over. I think there’s scope for looking at what fair trading relationships look like with farmers and the government should be more active in that space.”
While emissions from dairy farms have regularly been raised as a concern by climate change campaigners, earlier this month it emerged more than 200 practical measures to reduce greenhouse gas emissions are now underway on farms involved in the UK Dairy Carbon Network project.