UK wheat growers pinched by inflation and flatlining yields
© Tim Scrivener UK wheat growers are facing a financial squeeze, with inflation, flatlining yields, and low farmgate prices all having an impact on margins, according to agronomy and consultancy firm Ceres Rural.
The firm has modelled the compounded effect of inflation and commodity price falls over the past 10 years and established that, assuming yields haven’t changed since 2015, £165/t for wheat in the current market actually feels like £119/t.
Speaking at the firm’s AgriStrategy conference on 4 December, farming consultant George Badger said that once inflation is factored in, it explains why things are feeling so tight at present for growers.
See also: Grain outlook points to larger UK wheat crop next year
“The grain price increase over the past 10 years has exactly matched the inflationary increases on the input side.
“So, scrutiny over costs will need to be higher than ever going forwards,” he said.
Mr Badger added that the UK had exceptionally high variable costs for growing wheat compared with global competitors.
“We are more than double the likes of Argentina, Australia and Ukraine, and we’re between £100/ha and £180/ha higher than France and Germany.”
Jock Willmott, agronomist at Ceres Rural, said growers were going to have to make a margin from wheat at £165/t to £170/t for the foreseeable future, adding that average UK wheat yields had flatlined and fallen back in the past year.
Harvest yields
Alex Setchfield, biological scientist at Ceres Research said the that Ceres’ own dataset of harvest results, covering more than 1,000 farms across the UK, mirrored Defra’s findings at a national level with harvest 2025 figures generally down on the five-year average.
Dr Setchfield said winter wheat yields had continued to decline, while winter barley was about 9% higher than the previous year, but still below longer term averages.
He added that winter wheat yields generally yielded about 8t/ha across all soil types, but all had struggled against the five-year average.
“It wasn’t that one particular soil type was particularly worse than the other, all generally underperformed.
“Interestingly, in a dry year, it was the medium light land that performed best. It was still about 5% below the five-year average.
Other crops did far better though, with Ceres harvest figures finding winter oilseed rape yields increased by about 20% versus the previous year, and about 16% versus the five year average.
Dr Setchfield added: “Spring peas also had a very good year at just over 3t/ha. They increased by about 21% compared to the previous year, and about 10% versus the five-year average.”