Farmers in southern England face continued water shortages after the Environment Agency declared "severe drought" in Cornwall, Devon, Dorset, Somerset, East Sussex and West Sussex on Thursday 15 October, Farmers Weekly reports.
The South East and South West had their driest April-to-September period in more than a century, and reservoirs are well below normal for the time of year. The agency said September was the sixth month of 2026 with below-average rainfall and that recent rain had not been enough to reverse a dry spring and summer. Ardingly Reservoir in West Sussex was reported 20% full and Wimbleball in Devon 18%.
The agency will increase compliance checks on farms and businesses that abstract water, to make sure they take only what their licences permit, while offering farmers irrigation guidance.
The National Drought Group says it could take about 120% of average winter rainfall to bring water resources back to normal; even with average rain, parts of Devon, Cornwall and East Anglia could stay in drought until March. Despite forecasts of significant rain in the coming week, recovery will take time, the agency warned. 2026 is the third drought in five years.
"The declaration of severe drought across parts of the country reflects the challenging conditions we continue to face," said NFU deputy president Paul Tompkins. The union will press for greater access to water to refill on-farm reservoirs when it becomes available, and wants tax reliefs extended to farm infrastructure such as reservoirs, clarity on water management grants and fewer planning barriers to building storage.
The NFU welcomed the government's new Flood and Drought Taskforce, which brings together more than 50 organisations, but said practical action is needed now to make farms more resilient.
Photo: Martin Horsfall / Wikimedia Commons (CC BY-SA 2.0)
Source: Farmers Weekly
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