To avoid heartbreak, we must develop new methods of cultivation

The start of a new year is the perfect time to look ahead and think about our hopes and ambitions for the coming 12 months. I’m not a great fan of New Year’s resolutions - they’re far too easily broken - so consider this a personal wish-list for 2026.

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The first one is out of the control of you and me, but it’s something that dictates every aspect of British food and farming: the weather. We certainly don’t need a repeat of last year, when we had to endure an unusually dry spring, autumn floods in Wales and the West Country, and the hottest summer on record with a succession of heatwaves that devastated the harvest for many of us.

The Met Office has been warning us for several years that extremes of weather are becoming the norm, so farmers are at the forefront of developing climate-resistant crops and new methods of cultivation. We need to avoid the heartbreak and expense of root vegetables rotting under floodwater or cereals burning to a crisp beneath a ferocious sun. In the meantime, I’m keeping my fingers crossed for a more stable (you might even say boring) weather forecast this year.