This year's harvest 'a two out of 10', farmer says

"Terrible", "disappointing" and "a two out of ten".

That is how the famers I have met travelling across the Midlands over the past few days have described this year's harvest. In short, they have not had a good year.

At the heart of this is the weather. The end of last year was fairly wet, which let some winter crops get well established with time to put down deeper roots before the rain stopped and the heat began.

But crops that were planted later, in spring this year, had a much harder time.

Richard Bower, who farms near Stafford, said: "Spring crops for harvest this summer just got planted into dry conditions, they didn't have any moisture or the rain they needed so those yields were basically terrible."

Many farmers I talked to are now thinking of moving away from planting spring crops completely.

For arable crops like wheat and barley, harvest came a month early in some places and had finished by August - which farmers say is generally unheard of.

"Next year I might book my first ever August family holiday" one farmer joked.

But the amount of these crops - the yield - is well down on what they might usually expect.

Jake Freestone, a farmer in the Cotswolds, has seen yields for some crops like spring oats down 80%.

Much of his farm is devoted to growing the barley needed for brewing beer in Burton upon Trent, but the relentless heat pushed yields down 60% and what little Freestone could harvest was of very poor quality.

"The quality is out of specification for malting barley, the nitrogens are too high and basically the conversion into alcohol isn't good enough," he said, meaning the crop had been "downgraded to animal feed".

And on Freestone's farm you can still find empty reservoirs, drained of so much water he and his team had to mount a fish rescue. All were used up for just a single field of broccoli.

Some harvests are just beginning. In Atherstone in Warwickshire they have been keeping the potatoes in the ground for as long as possible just in case of a little bit of rain.

Now they are going for it, but for Helen Fisher it looks like it is the worst yield in living memory.

"The size is disappointing, but we're just grateful we've got some potatoes to be harvesting," she said.

Where they would expect 22 tonnes of potatoes an acre, this year it could be just 12.

Back on his farm, Bower is busy putting the finishing touches to a massive pumpkin patch with a play area in a barn and plenty of entertainment for families.

"I'm very glad we've diversified and have lots of visitors. Not every farm can do this, if I was just exposed to growing crops and raising animals I'd be very, very worried at the moment," he said.

"I've got neighbours having to raise their overdrafts or take on more loans just to survive."

It has been an incredibly challenging year for farmers - some have been luckier than others but all face a difficult twelve months.

And as for that "two out of ten" - that was from Freestone. The only reason he didn't give a one out of ten?

"Who knows what next year will hold," he said. "[I] need room to go down."

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