Climate change report flags rising risks for UK farming

It warns that climate impacts are already disrupting agricultural output and will intensify significantly without rapid adaptation.

The report, ‘A Well-Adapted UK’, outlines how extreme weather is affecting every aspect of life in the UK, with farming highlighted as one of the most exposed sectors due to its reliance on stable weather patterns, soil conditions and water availability.

Baroness Brown, chair of the Adaptation Committee, said: “Our lives, our landscapes and our homes are under increasing pressure from the changing climate. But we are not powerless. In an increasingly unstable world, being well adapted to climate change is fundamental to securing our food, energy and economic security.”

She added: “We should retain the proportion of food that we produce in the UK at 60%. We're not being in any way prescriptive about what type of food that should be. It needs to be the appropriate farming we can do in the conditions that we will have.”

The CCC warns that UK agriculture is already experiencing back-to-back seasons of extreme weather, including heat stress and flooding. In 2025, yields of key crops such as wheat and oats were more than 10% below the ten-year average following unusually hot and dry conditions.

It adds that by 2050, under a 2°C warming scenario, the proportion of high-quality farmland in England and Wales could fall dramatically, threatening long-term food production and increasing the risk that some farms become unviable in poorer years.

The committee says farming will need to adapt what is grown and how it is produced, with greater emphasis on soil health, water storage, crop diversity and climate-resilient technologies. It also points to opportunities for new crops in warmer conditions, including chickpeas and potentially even oranges in southern parts of the UK.

The report states: “Farming needs to adapt to remain viable. What is produced and how it is produced will need to change to ensure farming can survive the bad years and flourish in the good ones.”

It also calls for government support to help farmers access training, finance and regulatory flexibility to adopt more resilient systems, alongside changes to subsidies to encourage adaptation.

Alongside farming, the CCC highlights parallel risks to water supplies, nature loss and infrastructure systems, warning that drought could lead to shortfalls of more than five billion litres of water per day by 2050 under current projections.

The committee concludes that without action, climate change could cost the UK economy up to 5% of GDP annually by mid-century, reinforcing the urgency of strengthening the resilience of British agriculture.