Britain’s prolonged spell of hot, dry weather is beginning to affect one of the country’s most important agricultural sectors, with dairy farmers reporting lower milk yields, deteriorating pasture and rising feeding costs as drought conditions intensify across much of England.
The pressure comes as unusually high temperatures and an extended lack of rainfall place growing strain on livestock and grassland, highlighting the vulnerability of food production to increasingly volatile weather patterns.
Professor Nicola Cannon of the Royal Agricultural University said prolonged heat places dairy cattle under considerable physiological stress, reducing their ability to produce milk.
“Cows feel stressed just as humans feel stressed when it’s really hot, and as a response to that, their milk productivity goes down,” she said.
According to Cannon, some farms have reported milk production falling by as much as 20 per cent during the recent succession of heatwaves affecting Gloucestershire, Wiltshire and other parts of southern England.
The challenge extends well beyond lower yields. Dairy farming depends heavily on productive grassland, both for direct grazing and for producing hay and silage that sustain livestock through the winter months. With soils now heavily depleted of moisture, many fields are failing to regenerate after harvesting.
“Soils are parched, and grass can’t rebound after cutting for hay and silage,” Cannon said, noting that some producers have already begun using winter feed reserves significantly earlier than normal.
That creates a second economic pressure. Using stored forage during the summer increases the likelihood that farmers will need to purchase additional feed later in the year, raising production costs at a time when margins across the sector remain under pressure.
The effects are also being felt beyond dairy herds. Shepherdess Abby Cook, who farms in the Cotswolds, said grazing conditions had deteriorated rapidly as pasture burned off during successive periods of hot weather.
“Where we had grass, it’s all burnt off really quickly,” she said. “It’s making it a lot more challenging because our grass is disappearing really, really fast.”
The situation reflects the broader impact of this summer’s drought across the agricultural economy. More than half of England is now experiencing drought conditions, with low river levels, depleted soil moisture and limited grass growth affecting livestock producers in particular.
Many dairy farms have responded by investing in measures designed to protect animal welfare and sustain production, including installing industrial fans, improving ventilation and introducing cooling systems to reduce heat stress inside cattle housing.
Such investments can help mitigate the immediate impact of high temperatures, but they also add to operating costs for businesses already contending with higher energy prices, volatile feed markets and labour shortages.
Not all parts of agriculture have experienced the weather in the same way. Some arable producers have reported favourable conditions for crops including potatoes, while prolonged sunshine has benefited harvesting operations. Nevertheless, for livestock farmers dependent on healthy pasture, the absence of sustained rainfall is becoming an increasingly significant commercial challenge.
Meteorologists continue to forecast predominantly dry conditions across much of southern Britain, raising concerns that further reductions in grass growth could force more farmers to rely on purchased feed well before winter.
For the dairy industry, the consequences extend beyond this season’s harvest. Lower milk production, rising input costs and reduced forage availability illustrate how climate-related weather extremes are becoming an increasingly material business risk for British agriculture, reinforcing calls for greater investment in resilience across the food supply chain.