WWF Cymru commissioned Farmlytics to examine the impact of extreme weather and climate change on Welsh agriculture and food security. The project built on previous work on the impact of extreme weather on Scottish agriculture.
In 2021, the UK’s first Food Security Report concluded that:
‘The biggest medium to long term risk to the UK’s domestic production comes from climate change and other environmental pressures like soil degradation, water quality and biodiversity’.
Furthermore the cost-of-living crisis has highlighted the impact of extreme weather and other geopolitical events on food price inflation. The project sort to determine the costs of extreme weather on the Welsh farm sector.
Extreme weather and the risks to Welsh agriculture
Accordingly the report explores the economic impact of climate-induced extreme weather events on Welsh agriculture. It highlights the risks the changing climate poses to Welsh agricultural resilience. It also discusses some sustainable farming techniques that could help Welsh farms mitigate and adapt to it.
The study used a two-pronged approach of interviews and a quantitative analysis to look at the following extreme weather events:
- ‘The Beast from the East’ and heavy snowfall, 2018.
- Summer drought in 2018 followed by Storm Callum.
- Named storms such as Storm Dennis in February 2020 and Storm Ciaran in November 2023.
- Wildfires in south Wales, in summer 2022 and 2023.
- Drought declaration in mid and south-east Wales, in summer 2022.
Farmer Interviews
A number of farmers were interviewed about their experience of extreme weather and its impacts and practices that help to mitigate against the worst effects. The interviews included farmers who use regenerative and nature-friendly farming practices and farmers who do not to help make a comparison.
In addition, expert interviews provided additional insights on extreme weather, Welsh agriculture, food security, and mitigation strategies.
Economic analysis of Extreme Weather
In addition, the study also estimated the physical and economic losses incurred by farmers as a result of the extreme weather events. The analysis used data from the Farm Business Survey for Wales. The project looked at long term trends in livestock numbers, costs and crop yields. These trends were then factored out to estimate the impact of specific extreme weather events such as severe Winter weather and drought in 2018.
The release of the report was covered on the BBC Wales website, and the full report can be downloaded from WWF Cymru.