British farmers have always been at the
mercy of the weather, but extreme
conditions are making things tougher.
This exceptionally hot and dry year
means at more farm in Peterbrra they had
to harvest grain a month early. So the
red line is the line of our harvest from
last year. We feel reasonably fortunate
with the season that we've had uh that
we are only 20% down. Unfortunately,
some of our fellow farming members are
up to 50% down in yield.
>> The livestock here are primarily
grass-fed, but without rain, the grass
doesn't grow. Like many farmers across
the UK, they've been forced to dip into
winter feed supplies.
>> Come on, girls.
>> They have literally no grass. We've had
no rain, no substantial rain since
February. The main problem is that we
are using our winter stocks of feed.
that we've only got 60% of our winter
feed allocation harvested and we won't
get any more and we're currently using
some of that now and it's only the 1st
of September.
2025 is officially the hottest summer on
record. We've had four heat waves since
June. It knocks the infamous summer of
1976 out of the UK's top five warmest,
meaning they've now all occurred since
the year 2000. It's always concerning
when we see these kind of records, and
we're seeing them more and more
frequently. So far, thanks to human
activity, we've warmed the planet by
about 1.3° since pre-industrial times.
And under current policies, we're on
track for about 2.6° of warming by the
end of the century. At this garden
center chain, the dry heat means higher
costs, including paying staff to come in
earlier to water the plants.
going forward in the future longer
hotter summers it is going to be a
problem unfortunately I think the cost
will end up being passed on to the
customer so that the business can keep
running and it's stressful for the trees
leaves are browning and seeds are
dropping early it could make winter
difficult for the wildlife that usually
relies on them Davis ITV News
>> Becky is here with much more on this. I
was going to say everyone loves a warm
sunny day. I mean, not everyone does
clearly, but how serious is this now
that this is the warmest summer on
record? It's it's really serious. And
you're right, it's actually quite tricky
as a weather presenter because people do
love the warm sunny days, but now when
you look at the details, it's really
really serious. The Met Office Climus
research has revealed that without
climate change, we would normally expect
to see summers like this approximately
every 340 years. But when you add the
impact of climate change, we now expect
to see these sorts of summers every 5
years. 340 years versus 5 years. It's
absolutely mind-blowing and very
concerning. Summer 2025, officially the
warmest on record, but what about the
lack of rain? We've only seen 81% of the
expected rainfall in the last three
months. And this map that the Met Office
have just released really brings that
home. Everywhere that is colored brown
has seen below average rain. The darker
the brown, the drier it's been. And of
course, the heat and the lack of rain is
creating that false autumn. There is
rain on the cal cards though this week,
particularly on Wednesday when a deep
air of low pressure, as you can see, it
sweeps in from the Atlantic and could
bring up to half a month's worth of rain
to the UK in just a few hours. So, we
seem to have jumped straight from autumn
from spring and then summer and then
into autumn. Feet first. But at least
the only thing that is going to be happy
about this is the rainfall tables which
are finally getting some recovery. Yeah.