Climate Change Committee say Kent farmers will need to adapt in future
Experts say different crops and water storage are essential to keep the industry afloat.
Farmers across Kent may face additional challenges, as Climate Change experts predict increasing high temperatures and droughts through the next decades.
It comes from a new report released by the committee has called for eight priority areas of government action, including protecting individuals from heat, maintaining insurance access and adapting infrastructure.
CEO of the Climate Change Committee, Emma Pinchbeck, told us:
"If you think about extreme heat, drought and flooding, one sector that will be particularly exposed to this that we highlight in the report is agriculture and farming.
"And for farmers in Kent, there is some really significant information in the report.
"We think that crops like wheat, for example, will struggle more in the southeast of England than they do today.
"If you think about the strawberry crop in Kent and in the East Coast, these are products that are produced in the agriculture sector that might have to be changed or very different in future in order to keep farming viable. For farmers, we're saying we need to be able to store water on farms.
"Literal regulation prevents that right now, that we would like to see removed and shared across and for water to be able to be shared across farms.
"We need to see farmers able to grow different kinds of crop or more mixed farming to protect them from rising diseases, but also drought and flooding.
"And we need flood defences because a lot of our prime agricultural land is at risk of flooding today.
"It's costing farmers that are already struggling money and that will get worse out to 2050. So we want to keep farming viable.
"That is the objective that we set in this advice and that will mean action in the agriculture sector and real support for farmers from government to make those changes."
Over the past year farmers have faced increasing challenges, including increasing fuel costs and worries about warmer weather.
Environment Secretary, Emma Reynolds said:
"We are acting to protect people and places from the impacts of climate change that are already being felt across the UK - from flooding to extreme heat and drought.
"We have already invested a record £2.65 billion to repair and build flood defences, protecting tens of thousands of homes and businesses, and have deployed the largest nature-friendly farming budget in history to support sustainable food production and security.
"Robust, independent science is essential and we will carefully consider the Climate Change Committee's latest recommendations to drive further action.”