Harvest and food watch: farm drought, the harvest and food prices
How dry Britain's farmland is, how this year's harvest came in, and what is happening to farm, wholesale and shop prices. Seven official feeds, each with its own date, and nothing we can't source.
How dry is the farmland?
Two independent views: a satellite-and-rainfall drought index read at 65 farming areas, and soil moisture measured on the ground at the UK's monitoring network.
England 96%, Scotland 80%, Wales 88% of sample points in a drought class. 2 points are at Alert, where crops are visibly stressed.
27 of 39 sites are drier than usual for the time of year. In England the typical site is 8.9 points drier than its own normal.
The drought index is read at fixed farm points, so the percentages are shares of points, not of farmland; one point is about 1.5 percentage points. It is published about a week after each 10-day period ends. Reservoirs and drought areas →
This year's harvest
Defra's England provisional figures for 2026, published 8 October 2026. England only. Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland are added in Defra's final UK estimates in December, and England's figures can be revised then.
| Crop | Harvest | On last year | Yield |
|---|---|---|---|
| Wheat | 10.8 million tonnes | +0.8% | 7.2 t/ha |
| Barley (winter and spring) | 3.7 million tonnes | -11.5%smallest since 2012 | 5.5 t/ha |
| Oats | 527 thousand tonnes | -29.4%smallest since 2012 | 4.1 t/ha |
| Oilseed rape | 1.0 million tonnes | +43.5% | 3.8 t/ha |
From the farm gate to the shop
Prices move along the chain at different speeds. Farm and wholesale prices are the early signal; what you pay in the shop is the ONS figure at the end.
- Food and non-alcoholic beverages1.3%
- Bread and cereals1.5%
- Vegetables including potatoes2.5%
- Fruit1.9%
- All items (CPI)3.5%
- Carrots£0.62/kg (+19% on a year)
- Onions (brown)£0.63/kg (+24% on a year)
- White cabbage£0.70/kg (+35% on a year)
- Cauliflower£1.33/head (+33% on a year)
- Swede£0.29/kg (+16% on a year)
- Parsnips£1.44/kg (+26% on a year)
- Lettuce (butterhead)£0.53/head (+10% on a year)
- Apples (Gala)£1.28/kg (+4% on a year)
- Leeks£1.63/kg (+11% on a year)
- Pears (Conference)£1.07/kg (-12% on a year)
- Feed wheat£198/t (+18% on a year)
- Feed barley£175/t (+20% on a year)
- Oilseed rape£438/t (+11% on a year)
- Soya bean meal£356/t (+21% on a year)
- Fertilisers and soil improvers+13.1% on a year
- Animal feed+3.8% on a year
- Energy and lubricants+13.8% on a year
- Wheat+7.9% on a year
- Potatoes-17.6% on a year
- Fresh vegetables+9.8% on a year
Shop food prices are rising more slowly than prices overall (1.3% against 3.5%). On farms, grain is fetching more than a year ago (+18% for feed wheat) and fertiliser costs more (+13%), which can feed through to shops over the coming months, but it is one cost among many. A poor year for one or two crops is a reason to keep a modest store of the food you already eat, not to buy in bulk. How much food to keep in →
Common questions
How big was the 2026 harvest?
Defra's England provisional estimates, published 8 October 2026, put England's wheat at 10.8 million tonnes (+0.8% on a year earlier) and barley at 3.7 million tonnes (-11.5%, the smallest since 2012). England only. Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland are added in Defra's final UK estimates in December, and England's figures can be revised then.
Is there a food shortage in the UK?
Nothing in these official figures points to one. A smaller home harvest of one crop is normally made up from stocks and imports, and the shelves reflect many crops and many countries at once. Defra's UK Food Security Report sets out how the food supply holds up and where the pressures are. A sensible household store of food you already eat, built up slowly, is the calm response to any headline.
Are food prices going up?
The ONS measure of food and non-alcoholic drink prices was 1.3% higher in September 2026 than a year earlier, against 3.5% for prices overall. Farm prices are only one part of what you pay in a shop, alongside processing, packaging, energy, wages and transport, and changes at the farm gate take months to show up on shelves. Nobody can say for certain where food prices will go next; the next ONS figures are due 18 November 2026.
What do the drought classes mean?
The European Drought Observatory's Combined Drought Indicator builds up in steps. Watch means rainfall has been well below normal. Warning means that shortfall has dried out the soil. Alert means plants are visibly stressed as well, seen from satellites. Recovery classes mark places coming back towards normal after a drought.
How is soil moisture measured here?
UKCEH's COSMOS-UK network uses cosmic-ray sensors that read the water in the top layer of soil across an area roughly the size of a few football pitches around each site. We compare each site's latest seven days with the same week in that site's own past years, so a naturally wet hill site and a dry chalk site are each judged against their own normal.
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Home Alerts emails you when a power cut, a Met Office warning or a flood warning covers your postcode. Free for your own home. Opening in October; the first 100 on the list get in first.
Join the list →Sources and licences
- Combined Drought Indicator: European Drought Observatory (EDO), Copernicus Emergency Management Service, European Commission Joint Research Centre. (c) European Union, 1995-2026, CC BY 4.0. Changes: read at fixed Great Britain farmland points and summarised by PreparedBritain. CC BY 4.0. Method: 65 fixed points across lowland Great Britain farmland (arable and grass districts, off the uplands and mostly inland; chosen by hand, not by a land-cover mask). The CDI class at each point is read from the EDO map for the newest published 10-day period. Shares are shares of points, not of hectares; one point is about 1.5 percentage points. The map is a rendering of the published grid, so a point on the edge between two classes can read as the neighbouring class.
- COSMOS-UK data owned by UK Centre for Ecology and Hydrology. COSMOS-UK is supported by the Natural Environment Research Council award number NE/R016429/1 as part of the UK-SCAPE programme delivering National Capability. Sites are compared with the same seven days in their own previous years (at least 5 years); the newest days are provisional.
- Defra, cereal and oilseed rape production. Contains public sector information licensed under the Open Government Licence v3.0.
- Defra, wholesale fruit and vegetable prices. Contains public sector information licensed under the Open Government Licence v3.0. Source: Defra, Wholesale fruit and vegetable prices.
- Defra, animal feed prices. Contains public sector information licensed under the Open Government Licence v3.0. Source: Defra, Animal feed prices (straights).
- Defra, agricultural price indices (2020 = 100). Contains public sector information licensed under the Open Government Licence v3.0. Source: Defra, Agricultural price indices.
- Office for National Statistics, consumer price inflation. Contains public sector information licensed under the Open Government Licence v3.0. Source: Office for National Statistics.
- Defra, UK Food Security Report.
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