Weather events and input costs: support and advice

Climate change and geopolitical events have resulted in more frequent weather events affecting farming. These include sustained rainfall or drought, and volatile agricultural input costs.

This page contains a range of information on support and advice available to farmers to help with these issues.

The impacts of heavy rain can be heavily disruptive across all types of farms, damaging crops, eroding soil and providing greater risks to animal health. Similarly, drought conditions affect both crop growth and animal welfare and can put substantial strain on farms.

The Agriculture and Horticulture Development Board (AHDB) has published a number of articles on managing livestock and cereals in adverse weather conditions.

Wet weather

Weather page

Wet-weather grazing-management practices

Managing rotational grazing during wet weather

Managing ewes in wet weather

How to nurture wet-weather-ravaged cereals

Support for farmers

Drought

Drought

Reducing heat stress

Review your drought management plan

Drought – Market information

Fire prevention and control

Drought-busters for summer feed security

Adverse weather events often lead to increase feed costs. Alongside energy and fertiliser costs, these are also subject to geopolitical events.

We monitor these costs and discusses them with the other governments of the UK via the UK Agriculture Market Monitoring Group (on gov.uk)

There are resources available from AHDB and Farming Connect. They include advice, guidance, and webinars to help mitigate high prices. 

If you receive funding through the Basic Payment Scheme or any other rural grants scheme, contact Rural Payments Wales (RPW) as soon as you can, if you think the extreme weather:

• means you may not be able to meet your agreement requirements, including Cross Compliance
• may change the area eligible for a scheme
• may impact your reporting of movements of livestock

Please give details about the weather, including the date and time. You will be able to discuss your options or request a derogation. All requests will be considered on a case-by-case basis. 

We periodically run capital grant schemes for farm holdings. Details can be found on the rural grants and payments page. Each scheme has a set application window. Dates for upcoming schemes. can be found at Rural schemes: application datese.

Application windows are upcoming for the Small Grants – Environment and Growing for the Environment schemes. 

Small Grants – Environment is a programme of capital works. It is available to farming businesses across Wales to carry out projects that will help to improve and maintain traditional landscape features and provide habitat linkage for pollinating insects. 

Growing for the Environment is a grant scheme available to all eligible farmers in Wales. The scheme supports the growing and utilisation of crops, which can result in improvements in the environmental performance of a farm business.

The scheme objectives are to support farmers to:

• reduce carbon and greenhouse gas emissions
• adapt to climate change and build greater resilience into farm businesses
• improve water quality and reduce flood risks
• contribute towards a reversal in the decline of Wales’ native biodiversity

Information and guidance to help agricultural producers facing high costs for animal feed:

Agriculture and Horticulture Development Board (AHDB)

• Tackling silage costs and reducing waste (on ahdb.org.uk)
• Webinar: Clamp silage slippage – how to try and avoid slippage this season (on ahdb.org.uk) 
• Recommended Grass and Clover Lists (RGCL) (on ahdb.org.uk) 

Farming Connect 

• Farming Connect one-to-one on-farm clinics

Hybu Cig Cymru / Meat Promotion Wales

• Best practice in managing grassland, water, and soils 
• Perfecting the Welsh Way 
• Optimised Management of Upland Pasture – Webinar (on YouTube)
• Grasscheck GB Project
• New Project to Research Benefits of Grazing Systems

Disruptions to supply in recent years has caused volatility in fertiliser prices.

To help with optimising fertiliser use, information and guidance are available as follows:  

Agriculture and Horticulture Development Board (AHDB)

• Cost benefit calculator for nitrogen fertiliser use on grassland 
• Nitrogen fertiliser adjustment calculator for cereals and oilseeds 
• Fertiliser information 
• Blog: How should farmers manage costly nitrogen fertilisers? 
• How best to respond to costly fertiliser nitrogen for use in 2022 
• Mitigating high fertiliser prices (Webinar) 
• Growing grass: simple use of nutrients and fertiliser (Webinar) 
• Make the most of your muck (Webinar) 

Farming Connect

• Nutrient Management Planning | Farming Connect (gov.wales) 
• Cut your losses: Maximising the benefits of a nutrient management plan | Farming Connect (gov.wales)
• Grassland farmers can mitigate against impact on grass growth of applying less N | Farming Connect (gov.wales)
• Rising Fertiliser costs encourage seasonal Soil Testing | Farming Connect (gov.wales)
• Podcast - Give rotational grazing a try this Spring | Farming Connect (gov.wales)
• Reducing N input through the use of clover at Mountjoy | Farming Connect (gov.wales)

You can:

• find business advice and support through Farming Connect (on businesswales.gov.wales)

Farmwell Wales is an online information hub. You can get advice on personal and business resilience for you and your family.