UK dairy farmers delivered more than 240 million litres of milk less than would be expected this summer due to the high temperatures.
Analysis from the Energy & Climate Intelligence Unit showed that dairy farmers delivered over four days’ less milk than would be expected, equivalent to more than a billion school milk cartons.
On 87 days this summer, deliveries fell further below their expected level than on any equivalent date between 2008 and 2025, including every single day of July and August.
Tom Cantillon, senior analyst at ECIU, added that by August the scale of the impact was “regularly worse than anything seen in 18 years”.
“The missing £83m from farmers’ pockets has gone in a year when many were already milking at a loss,” he added.
The extreme heat and drought was a major factor in the reduction in output, alongside an increase in input prices as a result of the Iran war and efforts by the industry to avoid the oversupply seen last year.
“The costs don’t stop now that the rain has come,” Cantillon added. “A second bad year for grass has pushed farmers into their winter forage early, with feed prices to follow.
“Farmers need help to build resilience – shade, trees, water – but summers like this will keep getting worse until we cut emissions to net zero and bring the climate back into balance.”
Grass growth for the season to date as of 4 September stands at 86% of the 2019-2024 average, with the lost growth to date enough to feed the national cattle herd for two months, ECIU said, warning the growth gap was unlikely to close this year.
Many farmers already feeding cattle winter feed, which leaves them more exposed to hay, silage and other feed prices in the winter as they are forced to supplement their winter feed stores.
Debbie Wilkins, a dairy and beef farmer in Gloucestershire, said it had been a “difficult summer”.
“We’ve been able to produce enough food for the winter, though the situation is still not ideal because cows eating grass in fields is far cheaper than paying contractors to make silage and then dealing with the costs and labour of maintaining slurry stores, cleaning out sheds, changing bedding and so on,” she added. “The costs pile up when you have to bring the cows indoors, and the loss of milk production compounds the issue.”
Concerns were echoed by Ruth Grice, a dairy farmer in Leicestershire who said it was an “incredibly volatile time to be a UK dairy farmer as there are so many more climate unknowns”.
“You have to be so careful with your forage management, and you need to produce more winter feed than previously, developing that mentality of having extra, ‘just in case’ of another drought,” Grice said. “At the same time, you need a plan for dealing with the impacts of severe downpours during the winter months.”
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