The National Sheep Association (NSA) is urging UK policymakers to embed climate resilience at the core of agricultural policy, as unpredictable weather threatens the future of UK agriculture.
The organization says climate resilience must be explicitly integrated, both at the government and farm level, through agricultural strategies, financial planning and long-term planning.
The call comes days after Met Office issued a harsh warning that it was experiencing a “particularly different” climate as it did decades ago.
“This season is once again showing us that we need to find ways to make our farming system more resilient,” said NSA CEO Phil Stocker.
“We paint a variety of pictures across the country, but huge areas suffer from extreme droughts, and many areas look naked.
“Our weather has become more unpredictable, and both the wet and dry seasons make planning and farming extremely difficult. Contingency is more important.”
Stocker said droughts and floods are now familiar threats to productivity, but climate trends also disrupt the parasite lifecycle and the spread of livestock such as Schmallenberg and Brutong.
“For decades, sheep have moved across the country to areas where they have fed, and each fall has moved south and east, but this year, grass shortages have reversed the trend,” he added.
“We’ve also seen changes in the timing of stomach worms and blowflies, as well as herds exposed to the virus with limited protection measures.”
The NSA is encouraging farmers to take proactive steps to build resilience in their systems, while also urging policymakers to support this work through funding and clearer objectives within existing and future schemes.
“It would be worthwhile to have clearer and more direct references to climate change resilience and mitigation in the policy document and financial support to achieve such outcomes,” Stocker said.
The association acknowledged the complexity and scale of the challenge, but warned that escalating climate-related risks and failure to adapt could undermine the viability of food security and farm businesses across the UK.
