England drought package gives farmers £65m support
Fields are drying fast, harvests have come early and many farmers are bringing in less than they expected. In a government statement on GOV.UK, ministers said England's drought response will now include a £65 million boost for farmers after the driest July on record in England and Wales. That announcement came after Prime Minister Andy Burnham chaired COBR, the government's emergency response committee, to discuss extreme heat, wildfires and drought. If you are wondering why COBR matters here, the short answer is that this is no longer being treated as a narrow farming issue. It is being handled as a national problem touching food, water and infrastructure.
The government says the aim is to help farmers through the immediate squeeze: getting water to crops, finding feed for livestock where grass has failed, and keeping environmental agreements in place when drought makes the original plan impossible. Burnham, speaking during a visit to a farm in the South West with Farming Minister Stephen Morgan, described a picture many farmers will recognise: earlier harvests, lower yields, rising costs and little rain in sight. He also framed the ability to grow food at home as a matter of national security. That is worth pausing on. When farms lose yield, the damage does not stop at the farm gate. Lower production can mean tighter margins, more pressure on rural businesses and a bigger question about how a country keeps growing food during hotter, drier summers.
Most of the money is aimed at practical support rather than distant promises. The £65 million, which the government says is being found by reprioritising Defra's farming budget, includes an extra £50 million for the Sustainable Farming Incentive 2026, taking that budget to £290 million, and up to £15 million for on-farm reservoirs so farms can store water and prepare for future droughts. The government also says it will make reservoirs easier to build by cutting planning barriers and updating guidance, and it is working with the National Farmers' Union on a review of permitted development rights for on-farm reservoirs. **What this means:** if dry summers keep returning, farms need a way to hold on to water when it is available, rather than hoping the next rainfall arrives in time.
One of the less dramatic but most useful changes is about environmental schemes. Some farmers are paid to manage land for wildlife habitat, and those agreements usually stop them from grazing or cutting that land until later in the year. In a drought, that can leave livestock farmers in a brutal position: protect the agreement or feed the animals. Under these new flexibilities, farmers affected by drought can keep those payments while taking practical steps to protect livestock, crops and land, as long as they do not damage the soil. The government says this applies across the Sustainable Farming Incentive, Countryside Stewardship and older stewardship agreements. It also echoes the approach used during the 2022 drought, which tells you this is no longer a one-off problem.
Water rules sit at the centre of this story. In farming language, abstraction means taking water from rivers or other sources under a licence. 'Hands-off flow' limits mean that abstraction must stop when river levels fall too low. According to the Environment Agency, those limits are staying in place even with the new support package. What is changing is the speed and administration around licence variations, plus easier arrangements for sharing water between holdings. The Environment Agency said it recorded more than 1,500 licence restrictions in the week to 12 August, including Section 57 spray irrigation restrictions on 302 licences in East Anglia. That matters because it shows the balance ministers are trying to strike: helping farms reach the water they need without pretending rivers can give what they do not have.
This package applies to England only, because farming policy is devolved. The Environment Agency says drought status now covers East Anglia, Hertfordshire and London, Kent, the Thames Valley, Sussex, Hampshire and the Isle of Wight, Devon and Cornwall, Lincolnshire and Northamptonshire, the East and West Midlands, and Wessex. In plain terms, around three-quarters of England is in drought. Ministers say the UK food system remains resilient and that national food security is not expected to be hit by the dry weather. That is worth reading carefully. It does not mean farms are fine. It means the pressure is serious at local and business level, even if there is no immediate sign of a nationwide food shortage.
Environment Secretary Angela Eagle said farm businesses are facing some of the toughest conditions in decades, and she linked the response to the government's wider Farming Roadmap. Ministers have also pointed to plans for nine new reservoirs and almost £100 million of investment to strengthen the country's response to wildfires and other extreme weather. The government says it will keep working with farmers, water companies, environmental organisations and groups such as the National Drought Group and the Farming and Food Partnership Board. The bigger point is hard to miss. This is the third drought in five years, and that changes the conversation. Drought is not just about one unusually dry month; it is about whether climate risk is being pushed on to farmers alone, or shared through public policy, water planning and long-term support. If you want the clearest way to read this announcement, it is this: food resilience starts long before anything reaches the supermarket shelf.