The UK is underprepared for the impacts of climate change, with over half of England’s agricultural land now at risk of flooding, according to the government’s top advisors.
These were the warnings from the independent group of advisors on the climate crisis, the Climate Change Committee, which said on Wednesday that the UK was “not appropriately prepared” for worsening weather events such as heavy rainfall and heatwaves.
The climate challenges posed a growing threat to the food and farming industry, likely to put both homegrown food production and the UK’s biodiversity at risk, the committee warned.
Its new report to the Adaptation Sub-Committee – which is required to review the UK’s progress on adaptation every two years – noted that over half of England’s top-quality agricultural land was at risk of flooding today, with a further increase in total agriculture land at risk expected by 2050.
The threat of climate change
Baroness Brown, chair of the Adaptation Committee and also current chair of the Carbon Trust, said: “We have seen in the last couple of years that the country is not prepared for the impacts of climate change. We know there is worse to come, and we are not ready – indeed in many areas we are not even planning to be ready.”
She added: “We can see our country changing before our eyes. People are having to cope with more regular extreme weather impacts. People are experiencing increasing food prices. People are worried about vulnerable family members during heatwaves.
“Ineffective and outdated ways of working within government are holding back the country’s ability to be future-fit,” she said. “Failing to act will impact every family and every person in the country.”
Estimates suggested unchecked climate change could impact UK economic output by up to 7% of GDP by 2050.
Experts also claimed there had been “no change” in addressing this risk with the change in government last year, adding further friction to an already tense relationship between Defra and the farming sector.
The National Farmers Union (NFU) has called for government to prioritise investment in flood risk and water management in the upcoming spending review, in response to the committee’s report.
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A previous National Audit Office flooding report had already identified a continuous shortfall in Environment Agency flooding maintenance funding, after rural areas felt the devastating impact of extreme rainfall throughout 2024 as farmers were hit by relentless rain in one of the wettest years on record.
Flooding on farms
Many farms affected were still trying to recover from the damage to their land and their businesses to this day, the NFU’s president Tom Bradshaw said.
“Last year we experienced one of the most challenging growing seasons in living memory, with thousands of acres of farmland underwater early in the year,” he said.
“Even now, more than 12 months on and during the warmest week of the year so far, farm businesses are still working to recover.
“Not only does flooding cause significant damage to people’s properties and livelihoods, it also puts the UK’s food production at risk.
“Last year’s wheat harvest was one of the worst in 20 years,” Bradshaw added, following a drought and extreme heat in 2022 that left crops baked into the ground.
“At a time when global food supply chains are far from stable, we have to do what we can to protect and boost homegrown food production.”
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Tom Lancaster, head of land, food and farming at the Energy and Climate Intelligence Unit (ECIU), agreed that climate change was “having a devastating and multifaceted impact on UK farming and our collective food security”.
“For farmers, it’s becoming increasingly hard to farm, and this is not only hitting the UK’s food security but household finances too, with £361 added to the cost of a household food shop by climate change in 2022 and 2023 alone,” according to ECIU research.
“The response to this scale of risk is clearly not aligned to the jeopardy it poses,” Lancaster warned.
He noted that the green farming schemes that were “unexpectedly pulled last month” by Defra represented solutions to some of the climate change impacts on UK food production.
“Investing in these schemes at the spending review in June will be needed to build the resilience of UK food production, and will be a key test of whether the government has taken the criticism in this report on board,” he said.
“Until we reach net zero emissions and stop adding planet-warming emissions to the atmosphere, these risks simply become more and more unmanageable.”
A government spokesperson said: “Alongside our transition to become a clean energy superpower and accelerating towards net zero, the government is taking robust action to prepare for the impacts of a changing climate.
“As part of our Plan for Change we are investing a record £2.65bn to repair and build flood defences, protecting tens of thousands of homes and businesses and helping local communities become more resilient to the effects of climate change such as overheating and drought.
“We will now carefully consider the findings of the Climate Change Committee’s report, and we will respond in due course.”
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