00:00More than two-thirds of the UK are now in drought, and the lack of rainfall is evident in these
00:06fields.
00:06The heat and dry weather has forced some farms into early harvests, like this one in Women's World.
00:12How important is it for your farm?
00:14Wheat's really important. It's like the backbone, if you like, of our farm,
00:19and particularly for us because we mill all of our own wheat, so it's pretty fundamental.
00:24I would say our normal year would be, the yield would be around about 10 tonnes per hectare,
00:31and this year I would say that yields are down.
00:34I reckon about, across the board, probably 10 to 20%.
00:38Where the soils are good, those yield, the reduction is less,
00:42but where the soils are poor and they haven't been looked after and farmed regeneratively,
00:48then you're looking at bigger and bigger losses.
00:50To combat the financial impacts of the heat,
00:53Emma's one of the only in the country to start growing millet for human consumption.
00:57It's a grain popular in Asia and Africa, and is more resistant to these higher temperatures.
01:02Meanwhile, at a livestock farm in Ashford,
01:05Hugh is also trying to find a way to handle the dry weather.
01:09In a normal year, you would have two or three cuts of grass.
01:13This year we've had one.
01:15Some of the intensive farmers who put a lot of fertiliser on and use a lot of slurry and foamy
01:20manure,
01:20they will have had two, maybe two and a half cuts, but they won't have any more.
01:24But the biggest problem, this is one heatwave after another,
01:26so last summer was extremely hot and we used all the reserves.
01:30So there isn't that capacity in the system now.
01:33Most people who've got livestock, and especially dairy farmers,
01:37they're almost on full winter rations now.
01:40Hugh is backing the NFU's calls to make it easier for farmers to build on-farm reservoirs and water storage,
01:46helping them become more resilient to drought.
01:49Without water you can't do anything, whether it's fruit, vegetables, meat, whatever it is,
01:54you can't grow anything.
01:55We can't live without water.
01:56The biggest problem is that as a country,
01:59we only utilise 11% of what drops from up there.
02:0311% and it's just hideous.
02:05And this government has got to allow a strategy where farmers can put in reservoirs,
02:09put in dams, so that they can have a water storage.
02:12So then that will take the pressure off the mains water supply as well.
02:16With there being increasing pressure on UK farms,
02:19the industry says changes must happen now to keep British produce on the shelves.
02:25Chloe Brewster for KMTV.
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