The National Farmers' Union has warned that Britain could face shortages of certain foods as a severe drought grips parts of England, with a heatwave forecast to continue into next week. Farms have struggled through a turbulent year, hit first by winter floods that hampered planting and now by drought conditions that have restricted irrigation, leaving wheat crops at roughly half their normal height and prompting England's earliest ever harvest.

The Met Office reported that England received just 8% of its average July rainfall, likely making it the driest July on record, while some areas have seen no rain for over a month. About 23 million people across England and Wales are under a hosepipe ban, and wildfires have broken out across the country, most recently in Suffolk. NFU president Tom Bradshaw has urged the prime minister to act, calling for tax breaks to help farmers build water storage, while the UK Health Security Agency has issued amber and yellow heat alerts across several English regions as temperatures are set to exceed 30C.