Harvest 2023: Norfolk farmers frustrated by rain delays

While drought and heatwaves allowed a rapid completion of cereals harvests last year, arable growers have been grappling with contrasting conditions this summer.

Intermittent showers and rainstorms have forced combine harvesters to be repeatedly parked up on standby, waiting for grain in the fields to dry out enough to meet moisture specifications for storage, and to avoid costly drying charges.

Kit Papworth, director of farm contractors LF Papworth, at Felmingham, near North Walsham (Image: Newsquest)

North Norfolk farm contractor Kit Papworth, a director of LF Papworth, based at Felmingham, near North Walsham, said: "It is a massively frustrating harvest.

"On the back of last year's quick harvest, when we finished the whole thing on August 10, it is hugely disappointing.

"Our oilseed rape and winter barley are ready to go, but there are constant showers and heavier rain which are really affecting us.

"We are just getting a few hectares at a time. By this time last year, we would have been pushing 50pc of the total harvest, but this year we are at less than 10pc."

Mr Papworth said the winter barley gathered so far had delivered "at least average" yields, but he estimates his main wheat harvest is still two or three weeks away.

He added: "The oilseed rape has been ready to cut for a week and these constant rains and hailstorms are starting to shell the oilseed rape out, which is frustrating. It leaves you with multiple priorities all around.

"I think this is going to be how it is in the future. We are going to have to cope with very extreme weather.

"We have heard July is now our wettest month of the year, but meanwhile they are seeing record temperatures in Spain and Italy.

"I am glad not to have those, but equally we are going to have a slow and costly harvest, and quality and yield will be lost."

Those frustrations were echoed in the south of the county too.

Richard Ling of Rookery Farm at Wortham, near Diss, said: "We got an initial first day of harvest and then it rained stop-start for a week. Then yesterday [Thursday 20] we managed to get going by mid-afternoon and wrap up the winter barley.

"So the winter barley is complete, but there is still a lot of straw laying out there getting wet and that could be a bigger job to find a big enough window to get it dried and baled."

Mr Ling has recorded variable yields from his winter barley, ranging from a "pretty decent" 8.5 tonnes per hectare down to 6.5t/ha on fields of lighter land.

"The next crop will be spring barley and that is not quite ready yet, so we have caught up to date, even though we have had sporadic showers slowing us down," he said.

"It has been very frustrating, but it is part and parcel of being a farmer. Last year's drought and dry conditions were even worse, so we have to consider ourselves fortunate."

Richard Ling of Rookery Farm at Wortham, near Diss (Image: Liz Bishop Photography)

While the unpredictable weather has slowed the harvest, grain prices have gone up due to another unexpected factor - although, as the latest escalation of the devastating war in Ukraine, it is no cause for celebration.

Global wheat prices rose sharply this week after Russia pulled out of a UN deal that ensured safe passage for grain shipments crossing the Black Sea. Then, in the subsequent nights, it bombarded Ukraine's ports, destroying more than 60,000 tonnes of grain and damaging storage infrastructure, said officials.

Mr Papworth said: "Three weeks ago, the price of wheat was below the cost of production so we would have lost money. It was always going to go up anyway, but the closing of the grain corridor and the bombing in Odesa has had an effect on prices.

"This is just part of the volatility caused by war and weather events which we are going to see more often in a much more volatile environment."