- Shoppers have been warned to expect higher food prices ‘come the later part of this year’ as extreme heat and drought impacts UK farming.
- Chairman of the House of Commons’ Environment, Food and Rural Affairs Committee, Alistair Carmichael, said on BBC Radio 4’s The World At One: “The problems for farmers today will be the problems for consumers in six or 12 months’ time because you see massively decreased yield for wheat and for barley.”
- He added: “We can’t look to some of the alternative markets that we might have done in continental Europe in recent years because they are experiencing the same problems that we are.”
- Analysis from the Energy and Climate Intelligence Unit estimated that the hot and dry conditions could cut the country’s cereals and oilseed harvest by 2.5 million compared to earlier projections.
- National Farmer’s Union president Tom Bradshaw said: "This is one of the most severe droughts many farmers and growers have lived through.”
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