Burnham unveils £65m drought support for English farmers

The announcement came during a visit to a family-run potato farm in Cornwall, where Mr Burnham met farmers and NFU president Tom Bradshaw as prolonged hot and dry conditions continue to hit crops, livestock and farm businesses.

The package follows the driest July on record in England and Wales and comes as farmers face early harvesting, reduced yields, poor crop quality, depleted grass and rising feed and water pressures.

Mr Burnham said the government recognised the scale of the challenge facing the industry.

“I realise we’ve got a long way to go to build back trust with the farming community across the country,” he said.

“I think it’s probably been the hardest summer for British farming in a generation.”

He also described domestic food production as a matter of national resilience, saying: “We need to be able to guarantee our own food production going forward.”

The £65m package includes an additional £50m for the Sustainable Farming Incentive, taking its 2026 budget to £290m, alongside up to £15m to support the development of on-farm reservoirs.

Farmers will also have greater flexibility within environmental schemes during the drought, allowing them to graze or cut areas where grass has failed without automatically losing payments.

The government says the measures are intended to help farmers get water to crops, maintain livestock feed supplies and protect longer-term environmental work while dealing with immediate drought pressures. It is also promising changes to make it easier to develop on-farm water storage and improve access to water during drought conditions.

For the NFU, however, the announcement is only the beginning.

Mr Bradshaw described the measures as a “really welcome start” but warned: “It doesn’t affect the crisis today.”

He said many farms were “absolutely on edge because of a disastrous harvest”.

“Fields that should be green are now brown,” he said, adding that farmers were already using winter rations in the field.

The Country Land and Business Association (CLA) also welcomed the reservoir funding but warned that £15m would fund only a fraction of the infrastructure required.

Gavin Lane, CLA president, described the package as “a welcome and pragmatic move, but little more than a temporary fix”.

Continuing he said: "The vast bulk of the cost of building on-farm reservoirs will still fall on farmers, who are already facing record costs as well as absorbing new tax burdens. The announcement is a step forward, but it will not change the reality that farming remains exceptionally difficult in this business environment, and in a country that does not have a plan for climate change adaption."

With water security, climate resilience and food production increasingly intertwined, the immediate support may offer some breathing space.

But farming leaders are making clear that what happens next will matter just as much, particularly if the Government is serious about rebuilding the trust Mr Burnham accepts has been lost.