More than half of England is officially in drought, showing up in parched fields, stressed livestock, depleted rivers and increasingly fragile food supply chains. This summer’s heat and drought have exposed a hard truth: food production depends on the environment, and nature is under pressure as the climate changes.
For farmers, growers and communities, drought is not simply a lack of rain. It is a chain reaction. Dry soils reduce crop growth. Low river flows limit water available for irrigation. Heat stress affects livestock. Wildlife-rich habitats that help store water, cool the landscape and support pollinators begin to break down.
The result is a food system that becomes more vulnerable just when we need it to be more resilient.
Drought is already affecting what reaches our plates
Recent warnings from farmers suggest the UK is moving closer to visible food shortages when prolonged dry weather hits crops at critical stages. When plants cannot access enough water, they struggle to ripen, yields fall and quality can suffer. For fruit, vegetables and cereals, the timing of drought can be as damaging as its severity.
Grain is especially exposed. Extreme heat and dry weather can prevent cereals from developing properly, reducing harvest volumes and affecting the supply of staples such as bread, pasta and animal feed.
Reports from the food sector have already warned that this year’s extreme conditions could have consequences stretching beyond a single harvest.
Such dry soils and early harvests risk our soil even further, unable to plant cover or catch crops post-harvest leaves our fields even more prone to soil erosion through wind blowing topsoil off the field or when it does rain without these plants in place the topsoil washes away. Our farmers are left with a weaker topsoil for future planting and our rivers are polluted even further.
Heat stress is hitting livestock too
Drought and heat do not only affect crops. Dairy cows are highly sensitive to high temperatures, especially when heat is combined with humidity. During recent heatwaves, UK milk deliveries fell sharply, with analysis suggesting the equivalent of millions fewer pints reached the supply chain compared with normal production patterns.
Farmers are already looking for ways to adapt, including planting hedgerows and native trees to provide shade. These nature-based measures can protect livestock while also creating habitat, storing carbon and helping rain soak into the land when it does arrive.
As we can expect hotter weather and more extreme weather to be the new normal, we need these natural resolutions to be supported and ramped up by government support in environmental land management schemes as well as supply chains to support nature friendly farmers.
Nature is the foundation of food security
The UK Government’s assessment of global ecosystem decline makes clear that nature loss is not only an environmental concern; it is a food security and national resilience issue.
Healthy soils, functioning rivers, wetlands, woodlands, peatlands and pollinator populations are essential infrastructure for food production.
When ecosystems degrade, the risks cascade.
Less healthy soil holds less water. Pollinator declines threaten fruit and vegetable production. Damaged rivers and wetlands are less able to support farms through dry spells or buffer communities from floods when rain finally comes. Climate change is intensifying these pressures, making droughts more frequent, more severe and more disruptive.
There is no trade-off between food and nature
Too often, debates about land use frame nature recovery and food production as competing priorities. In reality, they are deeply connected.
Farms need clean water, fertile soils, abundant insects, shelter for livestock, and landscapes that can cope with drought as well as deluge.
Nature-friendly farming can help build that resilience. Restoring hedgerows, ponds, wetlands, floodplain meadows, grasslands, cover crops and peatlands can slow water flow, recharge soils, support pollinators and create cooler microclimates. Reducing soil disturbance, increasing organic matter and keeping living roots in the ground can help soils retain more moisture during dry periods.
What needs to happen now
To protect UK food production from worsening drought, government, retailers and food businesses need to act together on three clear priorities.
First, the UK must cut the emissions driving climate breakdown, including through a faster transition to lower-carbon, nature-positive food and farming systems.
Second, we must restore the natural systems that make farming possible. Government should commit to long-term, well-funded Environmental Land Management schemes that reward farmers using nature-based solutions that build drought resilience.
This must be matched by action from supply chains and public procurement to back nature-friendly farmers with fair prices, long-term contracts and clear market demand. Government should also support a shift towards healthier, more sustainable diets, food produced in ways that restore nature rather than depleting it.
Third, we must protect biodiversity and stop practices that undermine nature-friendly farming. Stronger safeguards are needed to prevent intensive systems from polluting rivers and water sources, while degraded landscapes such as peatlands must be restored so they can store water, improve water quality, and help farms and wildlife cope during dry periods.
A resilient food system starts with a resilient natural world
The droughts affecting UK food production are a warning. But they are also a call to act. If we restore habitats, rebuild soil health, protect water and support farmers to adapt, we can create landscapes that produce food while making space for wildlife to recover.
Food security is nature security. The sooner we treat them as one and the same, the better chance we have of protecting both the wildlife we love and the food we rely on.