This summer has been a big warning that we need a more resilient UK food system

This post is by Neil Ward, professor of rural & regional development at the University of East Anglia and co-director of Root + Reason.

Read more on how replacing some meat in our diets with UK grown pulses can benefit UK water security in Green Alliance’s ‘Tackling food security by futureproofing the UK’s diets’ briefing.

The heatwaves and drought of summer 2026 have put the UK food system under an uncomfortable spotlight. Food, farming and drought have been front page news, and much of the discussion has focused on immediate impacts: crop losses, farm incomes and the prospect of higher food prices. But this summer should also prompt a bigger conversation about how resilient our food system really is, and whether it is prepared for the shocks that are likely to become more frequent in the decades ahead.

Summer 2026 has been confirmed by the Met Office as the UK’s hottest summer on record. Average temperatures from 1 June to 10 August were almost 2°C above the 1991-2020 average, with temperatures reaching 38°C in June and 35°C in July. It was also exceptionally dry, particularly across England and Wales. Wisley in Surrey recorded 62 consecutive dry days and by mid-August more than 70 per cent of England was officially in drought.

Drought exposes deeper vulnerabilities
The drought has had extensive impacts on farming practices across the UK. Cereal yields are down with production levels expected to be their lowest for 40 years. For arable farmers, this follows several difficult seasons. For livestock farmers, the drought conditions have hampered grass growth and so mean earlier use of winter feed reserves and the need to buy in more supplementary feed. Estimates of the financial cost to farmers already run into several hundreds of millions of pounds. Horticultural and irrigated crops have been particularly exposed and there have been concerns about access to water resources. Calls to improve access to water and support investment in on-farm reservoirs are understandable responses. But they address only part of a much bigger challenge.

The first wave of economic implications will be on farm profitability. Nevertheless, inflationary pressures on food prices will continue, and the full effects of the disruption caused by the Iran conflict are still working their way through the system too. But beyond the short term, how are we to adapt to this changing world? For many people alive today, summers like 2026 may be remembered not as extreme, but as among the coolest they will experience in their lifetimes.

From crisis management to food system resilience
Last year, I led the production of a report, Roadmap for resilience: a UK food plan for 2050, for the AFN Network+. Funded by UKRI, the report was the outcome of almost four years of scenario analysis and quantitative modelling. It also involved extensive deliberation with people and organisations from across the food system, from agritech companies, farmers and bioscientists to food businesses, policy makers, and health, environment and consumer NGOs. The report starts from a simple premise: transformational change in the UK food system is inevitable. The real choice is whether we shape that change deliberately or allow it to be imposed on us by climate shocks, geopolitical instability and rising health costs. Under the latter, laissez-faire approach, it will be the poorest and most disadvantaged that suffer most.

Three core transformations are required. First, we need to build resilience in how our food is produced in the UK. This means changing what we grow as well as how we grow it.

Second, we need a smarter and more integrated approach to land use. Land is going to be in the frontline of adapting to climate change, so we need food and energy production, carbon sequestration and flood risk reduction delivered from land, along with many other functions.

That around 85 per cent of UK agricultural land is given over to livestock production, either as pastureland or for growing animal feedstuffs, is hampering our flexibility and our ability to build resilience. So, third, we need to make healthier diets more accessible and affordable, with greater emphasis on fruit and vegetables, including more legumes, which will bring health benefits too.

We set up a new vehicle: Root + Reason: the food resilience collective, to promote this approach to transformational change. We foster cross-sectoral dialogue and engagement across the UK food system and address the social and distributional challenges that radical change will bring.

The UK food system has been through profound change within living memory during the 1940s, 50s and 60s, when farming practices, productivity, cropping patterns and distributional infrastructure were transformed. We need that same spirit of ambitious national goals and unity of purpose.

The drought of 2026 should not be remembered simply as a bad summer for farming. It should be remembered as the moment we recognised that resilience must become the organising principle of UK food policy. If we act now, the mid-2020s could be seen not as the start of a crisis, but as the beginning of a more secure, healthier and more resilient food system.