"There's no support' Farmers fearful for crops after ruinously wet winter

With his farm almost entirely surrounded by the banks of the River Severn in north Shropshire, Ed Tate is used to flooding on his land, but this year, the sheer level of rainfall is the worst he has ever seen.

- Jessica Murray

He points to a field where about 20% of the wheat crop has failed because it has been covered with rainwater that has pooled in muddy puddles in areas that would usually be a sea of green by now.

Over the hill, he struggles to drive his off-road vehicle through boggy fields saturated with water while the rain continues to fall around him.

“I think in living memory this is the worst winter we’ve had, just because of the duration of wet weather we’ve seen, and we’ve got a lot of failing crops,” said Tate, who has been running his 320-hectare (800-acre) mixed arable and livestock farm outside Shrewsbury for about 20 years.

"We're losing tens of thousands of pounds and there's just no support. It does mean we're going to have to look at redundancies on the farm, unfortunately. With some crops we might break even. But for other farms, this could tip them over the edge."

Met Office data shows that from October 2022 to March 2024, England was hit by the highest amount of rain for any 18-month period since records began in 1836.

Some farm crops have been completely wiped out, while many others have drastically reduced yields. The Agriculture and Horticulture Development Board has predicted that this year's wheat yields will be down 15%, winter barley down 22% and oilseed rape down 28%, the biggest drop since the 1980s.