Opinion: Let’s be the heroes not victims of climate change
© Tim Scrivener Farmers are on the front line of climate change. That has been made scorchingly obvious this summer as pastures became deserts, harvest finished earlier than ever, crop failures made it into the national press, and we all received multiple government alerts buzzing into our phones to remind us of the risk of wildfire.
Dystopian? Sure, but having grown up with global warming on the school syllabus it really doesn’t come as a shock, more an inevitability.
See also: Opinion – why we need to redefine the word ‘productive’
About the author
On our sandy farm in Surrey we’ve known for a while that climate change is one of the biggest drivers of our business decision making.
And this year rubber has really hit the road as we’ve had to make some hard but inevitable choices.
We’ve decided 2026 is our final hop harvest. A lack of summer rain, too much heat and rising costs coinciding for two years in a row mean it’s just not a viable enterprise for us anymore.
It’s emotional as we’ve proudly grown hops forever (I’m working out where to get my in memoriam hop tattoo) but head over heart it’s the logical decision.
We’ve also de-stocked our herd due to the lack of grass (we grew so little it cost us more to make hay bales this year than to buy them in), but this was also an opportunity to focus on our breeding objectives and to tighten up genetics.
We’ve shared these decisions and realities on our social media and with our customers and the reaction has been interesting.
Incredibly supportive, understanding, but also shocked and full of sympathy. Which is kind of people, and reflects the wider national press narrative of “our poor farmers are struggling”.
And don’t get me wrong, many of us are. But I don’t love the “pity our poor farming folk” story.
I don’t want our sector just to be seen as the victims of climate change. I want everyone to see that land managers are the heroes who can provide solutions to reduce its impacts.
I’ve been on a UK roadtrip this summer visiting farmers as part of my Nuffield research and yes, everyone’s land is parched and yes, we’re all rethinking our businesses for maximum resilience.
But I was totally bowled over by the excitement and hope we feel too, knowing that we can be the ones to fix these problems.
The buzz of discussing people’s plans for building ponds, restoring river channels, creating wetlands, increasing organic matter, planting trees and hedges, restoring peatlands, capturing more rain water from our roofs, reducing surface runoff, the list goes on.
We are doing these things because they will add resilience to our businesses, and provide benefits for others too. I was prepared for a road trip of doom and gloom but time after time I left farms feeling upbeat and excited for a farmer-led future full of brilliant solutions.
That’s why we have to reclaim our narrative, sympathy is fine for a bit but I don’t want to work in an industry that people pity.
We can do better than have a complaining Clarkson as our poster boy for farming.
Let’s tone down the moaning and give the mic to the farming folk who want to deliver fixes to climate change, the farmers that understand that we can be the heroes of this story.