Months of unusually dry weather have killed the grass that British farmer John Franklin’s sheep would normally graze on. Like other farmers, Franklin’s only contingency is to dip into the winter feed. He had been saving this feed for colder months, he told CGTN.

His 200-acre farm, which also runs a shop and cafe selling local produce, has lost a third of its income this year as crops fail to meet market specifications and yields drop.

He is not the only one. Research from the Energy and Climate Intelligence Unit (ECIU) suggests that the 2026 harvest is now likely to be one of the five worst since 1984

Climate-sceptical farmers can no longer ignore realities

In its latest study, latest, World Weather Attribution has reported that the June heatwave (where temperatures climbed to 37.7 degrees celsius) would have been unimaginable 50 years ago, adding that climate change is “unequivocally to blame.”

Martin Lines, CEO of the Nature Friendly Farming Network and a farmer from Cambridgeshire, said that even climate-sceptical farmers were facing the brutalities of climate change:

I’ve never known it this dry and hot on our farm. Even farmers I know who were sceptical of climate change are now saying they’re really worried about the future of their businesses and production, it’s just been completely brutal for our industry. And with high input costs because of the Iran war, planning crops for next year is a total nightmare. The nature-friendly practices we’ve deployed on the farm have helped our soils hold on to water for longer, but there’s only so much you can do to adapt to these sorts of extremes.

Consequences even for Clarkson

Jeremy Clarkson who has made a career out of dismissing climate worries as the preserve of “soup-throwing” activists and “Elton John-taxing” do-gooders, has found himself in an awkward position. His own Diddly Squat farm in Oxfordshire has not been immune to the same brutal conditions.

In his typical fashion, Clarkson wrote in the Times earlier this year:

I fully understand that a great many people are extremely worried about climate change and believe that unless we immediately give Israel to the Palestinians and throw soup over a few more paintings, the whole world will quickly become a blazing inferno. So understandably they fully support the concept of net zero and argue that the £7 zillion to implement it should be met by vigorously taxing Elton John and the nation’s bankers.

But even Clarkson might struggle to joke his way out of a parched field and shrivelled crop.

Featured image via the Canary

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