Farmers have been dealing with record-breaking rainfall over at least the past year, meaning food produced in Britain has fallen drastically.

Livestock and crops have been affected as fields have been submerged since last autumn on account of it being an exceptionally wet 18 months.

According to the Met Office, 1,695.9mm of rain fell from October 2022 to March 2024, the highest amount record for any 18-month period in England.

Here, British farmers and growers tell us how they have handled the inclement weather conditions and what the heavy rainfall means for their immediate futures.

‘We are going to have an appalling harvest this year’

Our farm is mainly arable so it’s crops that we grow. The constraints that we are facing this year means we are going to have an appalling harvest. We’ve hardly got any crops in the ground at all, I’ve only managed to get 30 hectares [74 acres] of my 170 hectares planted and we have 110 hectares of “croppable” land. That’s less than a third.

Generally you plant in the autumn but the difficulty we’ve had this year is that from mid-October to effectively now, there has just been non-stop rain. Usually, you get rain but there will be pockets of dry weather for two or three weeks at a time to do the planting. That simply hasn’t happened. For people who got crops in the ground before mid-October, that’s fine, but for me and many others if I plant too early I get this terrible weed called black-grass and that takes over my crop.

We’ve all been caught out this year. I would imagine there will still be thousands of unplanted hectares. The difference between this year and any other is there has been no pocket of fine weather, that’s why it has been such a big problem.

Everyone is saying this is extraordinary. There have been bad years but this year has been particularly bad. You do wonder whether it is climate change throwing a curveball here because we are moving to more and more extremes. When it came to planting crops last autumn, it was fine but harvest 2022 was incredibly dry, meaning they dried up too quickly and the yields weren’t great at all. Tom Allen-Stevens, 54, farmer and agriculture journalist, Faringdon, Oxfordshire

‘There’s no sign of fields drying out soon’

The fields simply aren’t having a chance to dry out. We can’t use our tractor to cultivate, so we haven’t done any of the major plantings that are usually in the ground by now, such as main crop potatoes and onions, summer brassicas and salads. There’s no sign of them drying out soon.

We can’t use the tractor because it will wreck the soil structure, which, as agroecological growers, we’re keen to preserve. Instead we’ve been focusing on our polytunnels and using this space to maximum benefit. This is a tiny area in proportion to our fields though and can’t accommodate enough food to meet the needs of our box scheme.

It’s going to have a huge impact on our business, as customers are likely to cancel their subscription if the amount of veg they receive each week is too small for too long. The “hungry gap” [a few weeks, usually falling between April and early June, when winter crops have ended but the new season’s plantings are yet to be harvested] is going to be way longer than usual. Also, we sometimes buy in from a local organic wholesaler to top up our boxes when we don’t have much of our own produce available; this will be much more expensive this year as so many big UK growers are affected.

Longer term, these unpredictable weather patterns are a worrying indicator of climate change, and confirmation of the need to entirely restructure our food system to enable genuinely sustainable production that meets the needs of local communities and is accessible for all. Rhian Williams, 31, vegetable grower at a community supported agriculture farm, Leeds

‘We still have the vast majority of our cattle inside’

The main enterprise it has affected from our perspective is the cereals, in terms of getting them planted and also the sheep. The lambing percentage was lower, as a result [the percentage of ewes exposed to a ram per breeding period that have lambed].

It’s just been hard work. You get up in the morning and you don’t see a forecast where there is a better [weather] window. It’s quite frustrating and we have to condense a lot of our work into quite small windows at present. It’s a lot more hurried, we are working extended hours into the evenings or starting earlier in the mornings.

At the moment, we still have the vast majority of our cattle inside. We just can’t put anything out because it’s so wet. The sheep are lambing, so we are having to hold them inside until we get a dry weather window so they get stronger before we put them out.

On the cereal side, we couldn’t sow a single seed yet for spring barley until Thursday which, here in Scotland, is quite important for the whisky trade, as well as for our straw bedding for the livestock. Scott Maher, 50, mixed farmer partner, Angus, Scotland

‘If the rain stops, we then have to worry about drought – the seasons are so unpredictable now’

I work as a shepherd for somebody who runs an extensive grass-based system. He keeps exclusively sheep and probably has about 1,000 lambing ewes spread around a large area in the Cotswolds.

Weather is a massive factor but so much of that has been compounded by general issues that are affecting people in day-to-day life. Farming is one of the only industries where we produce things sold at wholesale but we have to pay retail prices for our input – fuel and feed, for example – which has all gone up. That’s always been an issue in the industry.

Last year, we had drought conditions during the peak grass-growing times of the year, spring and early summer. Now we have had to deal with flooding. Some of the fields are completely underwater and are basically inaccessible unless you are prepared to get very wet feet. We’ve had to spread the stock out as far as we can around the land area and keep it understocked by industry standards in order to have that margin for inclement conditions.

If it does stop raining, we then have concerns about whether there will be another drought. The weather seasons are so unpredictable now and that also brings issues of parasites, flies, more insects which we wouldn’t normally see in this country that bring disease such as bluetongue. Elizabeth Johnson, shepherd and vet student, Gloucestershire

Julian Medina comes from a long line of fishers in the north of Colombia’s Gulf of Morrosquillo who use small-scale and often traditional methods to catch species such as mackerel, tuna and cojinúa.

Medina went into business as a young man but was drawn back to his roots, and ended up leading a fishing organisation. For years he has campaigned against the encroachment of fossil fuel companies, pollution and overfishing, which are destroying the gulf’s delicate ecosystem and people’s livelihoods.

He says there have been huge declines in the amount of fish he and others can catch – 70% in the past decade – leading to widespread hunger in an already poor region. “We are now getting fish below the minimum size, which are the ones that could have provided us with security in the future.”

Medina is angry at the fossil fuel companies that are taking over part of the coast and have caused oil spills, and angry at the authorities that license them and undermine community attempts to restore mangrove forests. He is also deeply concerned about how warming water is bleaching the coral reefs through which his prey swims.

“We see how industrial activity is affecting our entire ecosystem,” he says. “But we also know that climate change is affecting our environment. It is a struggle and we are trying to make it visible in order to be heard.”

Medina will be telling his story this week to a panel of judges in Barbados during the first part of a historic hearing on climate change by the inter-American court of human rights.

The inquiry was instigated by Colombia and Chile, which together asked the court to set out what legal responsibilities states have to tackle climate change and to stop it breaching people’s human rights.

The detailed request seeks clarity on many issues, including children’s and women’s rights, environmental defenders, and common but differentiated responsibilities – the idea that all countries have a role to play in tackling climate change but some should bear a bigger burden. As well as mitigating and adapting to climate change, it asks how states should tackle the inevitable loss and damage.

Although climate change affects the whole world, the two countries told the court that its effects are not experienced uniformly or fairly. Their request letter warns that people in Chile and Colombia already deal with the daily consequences of the climate emergency, including droughts, floods, landslides and fires.

“These phenomena highlight the need to respond urgently and based on the principles of equity, justice, cooperation and sustainability, with a focus on human rights,” they said.

Courts around the world are increasingly making the link between climate justice and human rights. This month, the European court of human rights ruled for the first time that weak government climate policies violated fundamental human rights.

But the global south is leading the way. The Costa Rica-based court was set up in 1979 to interpret and apply the US convention on human rights, a treaty ratified by members of the Organization of American States. Twenty states have accepted its jurisdiction, including most Latin American countries and several Caribbean islands. Neither the US nor Canada have done so.

It is the third international court tasked with providing an advisory opinion on climate change, alongside the international court of justice and the international tribunal for the law of the aea. Such opinions are highly influential and set the framework for future legal action.

However, the inter-American court is the only one focusing on human rights. In a previous opinion it recognised the right to a healthy environment and affirmed that states must protect human rights affected by environmental harm, even if it happens outside their borders.

That recognition was enforced in March, when it ruled that Peru had violated the right to a healthy environment of people living in the country’s “most contaminated town”.

“The inter-American court is generally known and sees itself as a court that is much more willing to innovate with the law and to draw on sources from around the world,” said Sophie Marjanac, the accountable corporations lead at environmental law charity ClientEarth who will be speaking at the Barbados hearing.

Unlike the other courts, the inter-American court accepts written submissions from organisations and individuals, and has invited many of these to its oral hearings.

The hearing will begin with statements from the governments of Chile, Colombia and Barbados, followed by Mexico and Vanuatu. The court will then hear from UN bodies, legal experts from the Americas and further afield, local and national campaign groups, trade unions and refugee organisations. The eclectic mix of speakers includes Grupo Energía Bogotá, a large regional gas company.

One key part of the opinion tackles intergenerational equity, and the court will hear directly from youth people.

Jovana Hoschitalek, 18, a teacher and Grenadian climate campaigner, has seen significant changes in her home island.

“The sea is rising, quite a few of our plants are dying and water is becoming more scarce,” she said. “Sooner or later the things that I have grown up with, my younger sisters aren’t going to be able to experience.”

Hoschitalek is preparing to tell the court about her experiences. “I want to try to tell them how important it is that the future generations can be seen because … children won’t be able to survive the harsh climate that will come if things don’t take a drastic change.”

Trina Chiemi, the founder of youth network Fast Action on Climate to Ensure Intergenerational Justice, hopes the hearing will be an empowering process. “With the inter-American court we’re able to share our voices directly, and they’re able to look and see the faces of the people that are affected.”

The court’s subsequent hearings in the Brazilian cities of Brasília and Manaus in May will include many more frontline stories from the climate crisis including people living in “sacrifice zones” in Chile, Bolivian women fighting to protect their local water supplies and Indigenous communities.

Medina and others are speaking at the hearing with the support of Asociación Interamericana para la Defensa del Ambiente (Aida), an environmental law organisation that works in Latin America.

“A lot of issues that are going to be raised may seem disconnected,” said Marcella Ribeiro, a senior human rights and environment attorney for Aida. “But what I think is really beautiful [about] hearing from environmental defenders and communities directly is that they can pinpoint where or how these environmental issues connect with climate change. For example, environmental degradation and their ability to adapt.”

Once the opinion is published, it will have direct influence on the countries that accept the court’s jurisdiction. Legal experts say it will be an authoritative source on the obligations of states to respond to climate change, potentially boosting action to cut greenhouse gas emissions, supporting adaptation measures and helping establish mechanisms to address loss and damage.

Campaigners also hope it will invigorate existing climate lawsuits and petitions, such as those currently stalled at the inter-American commission on human rights (the court’s sister organisation), and say it could form the basis for future domestic or regional climate litigation.

It could even be used by countries during arbitration claims in investor-state dispute settlements, many of which are brought by companies in extractive industries.

The opinion is expected to have an impact outside the Americas too, including on the ICJ’s pending advisory opinion.

“We in the territories know something about our environment, we know what is happening,” said Medina. “Many scientists come and study what is happening and they can give context. But we who have experienced the changes … it is very important that our voices are heard.”

A high court judge has thrown out an attempt by the government’s most senior law officer to prosecute a woman for holding a placard on jury rights outside a climate trial.

Mr Justice Saini said there was no basis for a prosecution of Trudi Warner, 69, for criminal contempt for holding a placard outside the trial of climate activists that informed jurors of their right to acquit a defendant based on their conscience.

The solicitor general had argued that Warner, a retired social worker, had committed contempt by holding the sign that was read by potential jurors at the opening of the trial last April.

The judge said Warner had not harassed, impeded or even spoken to any of those entering inner London crown court last year. The sign referred to a 1670 case known as “Bushel’s case”, in which a jury refused to find defendants guilty despite a judge having instructed them to do so.

He said: “The solicitor general’s case does not disclose a reasonable basis for committal … the conduct did not amount to an act of contempt.”

The judge said: “I refuse the solicitor general permission to proceed and I dismiss the claim.”

Warner, who has waited for a year to find out if she will be prosecuted for contempt of court, said she was feeling “very relieved”.

She said: “I feel it is job done. What I was doing was drawing attention to the terrible repression of conscientious protesters, and in particular climate protesters, by the state.

“If what I did will empower other defendants to use the power to acquit by juries, this will have been the fight of my life.”

In his ruling, the judge said there was a well-established principle in law of jury equity; this was a de facto power to acquit a defendant regardless of directions from the judge. He said the principle in law had been tested in the highest courts in England and Wales, and existed in other countries such as Canada, New Zealand and the US.

Warner’s placard referred to the Bushel case, which is celebrated with a marble sign that is clearly visible in the central criminal court in London. It read: “Jurors, You have an absolute right to acquit a defendant according to your conscience.”

Warner stood outside inner London crown court last April for 20 minutes holding the placard as members of the public, lawyers and potential jurors filed into court. She held the sign on the first day of a trial for public nuisance of members of the climate campaign group Insulate Britain.

The judge in that trial, Silas Reid, referred her action to the attorney general to consider contempt of court.

Last week, the solicitor general argued in the high court that Warner should be prosecuted for contempt for holding the sign.

Aidan Eardley KC told the court a prosecution was needed “to maintain public confidence” in the independence of the jury system and that if Warner went unpunished, similar acts were “likely to propagate”. He claimed Warner had confronted jurors outside court and her actions were an interference with the administration of justice.

Saini said in his ruling on Monday that it was accepted Warner had made no attempt to hinder, compel or even speak to those going into the court.

The decision was welcomed by supporters outside the high court. It came after the UN rapporteur on environmental defenders highlighted the repressive actions taken against climate campaigners in the UK.

Michel Forst said he was alarmed at the restrictions being placed on defendants in climate trials, which include being prevented from mentioning the words climate change or fuel poverty, or the tradition of peaceful protects embodied in the US civil rights movement.