Northamptonshire farm says harvests disrupted by 2025 weather
Philip Weston says he's working at night to be able to harvest certain crops whilst others are being harvested early.
A Northamptonshire farmer says he's having to harvest at night due to the heat.
It comes as the Environment Agency announced Tuesday that the East Midlands is now in drought, though Anglian Water aren't looking at hosepipe bans yet.
Philip Weston is a fifth generation farmer in the county, with his family having farmed Hartwell Park Farm since 1820.
He says it's unusual at this point in July to have already harvested winter barley, which needs a certain amount of moisture at harvest:
" This year, we we've been really struggling in terms of actually getting it so it was moist enough. So normally we would be looking to harvest crops such as barley and wheat below 15% this year.
"We've been struggling to actually keep it sort of above 12% and obviously we get a significant sort of tonnage reduction. Obviously the driver, the crop is obviously the less it weighs, we're obviously gonna get a significant sort of drop in monetary worth about crop."
Philip says he'd normally harvest wheat during school summer holidays, but he's already considering harvesting it before the school term has finished.
He shares his thoughts on the Energy Secretary Ed Miliband said earlier this week that our way of life is under threat because of extremes of heat and rainfall:
"The weather is certainly far more variable. You know it's highs and lows. You know we we either get all the rain or we get all the dry we don't get little bit of heat and I think that's the awkward bit really. You can't sort of plan around that quite so much."
Whilst he says he's not too worried about the drought announcement just yet, he says meat producers will be hit hardest, with some seeing a 50% drop in hay yields to feed their cattle.
The East and West Midlands became the latest areas of England to fall into drought on Tuesday as the country struggles with the driest start to the year since 1976.
The move comes in the wake of summer heatwaves and a drier than average June, with the Environment Agency (EA) warning three more areas - Lincolnshire and Northamptonshire, East Anglia, and Thames area - have also moved into prolonged dry weather status.
The declaration of drought status for the East and West Midlands means the region joins Yorkshire, Cumbria and Lancashire, and Greater Manchester, Merseyside and Cheshire, which are already in drought.
Anglian Water said the recent rain had helped river and reservoirs levels, delaying the need for restrictions, but uncertainty over the future forecast meant a hosepipe ban could still be needed this summer.