Was 2026 a terrible year for farming?
I normally love summer, but I must admit that this year it felt like a trial of endurance and I was hugely relieved when the weather turned and the rain came. Now that the harvest and drying season is over, I spend most of my days in the processing barn, blending, packing and labelling tins, which gives me plenty of time to reflect. Farming has rarely been out of the news this year, with drought, food security and funding schemes making the headlines, but have farmers really had it that bad?
It was definitely a tough growing season for us, with a late frost affecting our mint and lemon balm crops, quickly followed by a prolonged period of extremely hot, dry weather. Whilst many of our plants are fairly drought tolerant and our no-dig beds retain moisture better than bare soil, I still had to do more watering than normal to keep plants alive, working earlier and later in the day to avoid the heat. Temperatures in our polytunnels and yurts were often horribly high and some plants bolted and went quickly to seed in the heat, leading to reduced yields. Overall though, we were still able to harvest more than last year and have plenty of herbal tea to sell. We also managed to grow several enormous watermelons, which was a bonus!
For my friends and neighbours who grow vegetables, fruit and flowers for a living, things appeared to be even more challenging. Those without irrigation systems spent hours watering every day, hours of extra work that would not be recompensed. And, despite their best efforts they still suffered low yields. Blueberries withered on the bushes, seeds failed to germinate, crops ripened all at once. Those with livestock were feeding hay when their animals should have been eating grass.
We can't control the weather, but we can control where our ingredients come from. We think that it is really important to have resilient local food and drink supply chains in the UK and when we set up Gathered & Grown we made the deliberate decision to grow all of our ingredients on site. Because we don't import, for example, Chamomile from Egypt, or Nettle from Eastern Europe, we are not affected by issues impacting global supply chains and our growing system is reliant on very few external inputs, so we are not affected when prices rise.
We don't qualify for the Sustainable Farming Incentive as we don't own enough land, most of the habitat creation and environmentally-friendly measures we put in place on our farm are self-funded. We do it because we believe that it is something we should do and it makes us happy to be surrounded by wildlife, but also because we are reliant on healthy ecosystem processes to make what we do possible.
I am in no doubt that many farmers will have given up this year, justifiably feeling that the work is too hard, too unpredictable and the rewards are too few. And that affects us all, because when we lose local producers, we lose choice about what we buy and consume. So, what would actually help small-scale producers to thrive?
Well, I know plenty of people who have the skills and desire to set up a new farm, but they are held back by planning policy that makes it difficult for new entrants to build farm infrastructure and to live in the countryside. Better food distribution networks are also really important - regular farmers' markets with low-cost stalls, delivery services and distribution hubs are needed - farmers need to be able to sell directly to customers and customers need convenience. It would also help if farmers were provided with a basic income - most farmers are doing what they do because they believe in it, and they keep doing it even when they are losing money, because they know that if they give up, nobody is going to step into their shoes. And then what? We would be left with imported foods, only available through supermarkets and of potentially dubious quality. A basic income would help to buffer against disasters caused by poor weather, illness and other unpredictable events.
It is definitely a tough time to be a farmer, but farmers are some of the most adaptable, hard-working and determined people I have ever met. The work can be exhausting and the uncertainty worrying, but the reasons to carry on are many. Every time you buy a tin of tea from us, it helps to ensure that we will still be here next year, producing high quality products, whilst managing the land for the benefit of wildlife and the environment.
