After cutting 6ha of oilseed rape in North Kent, Robert Shove’s harvest “can only be disappointing because we haven’t seen any rain since April”.

The cut rape was reading 5.8% moisture, which he said was “more encouraging than we could have hoped for”, considering it had been “desiccated two weeks ago”.

Mr Shove said that the wheat crop also died off “many weeks ago”. “It is not going to be good at all.”

“Things are much worse than last year because the crop died off so early.”