UK Not Making Hay While The Sun Shines – CleanTechnica

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As a result of one of the hottest and driest summers on record, farmers in some parts of the UK are reporting a decrease in hay yields of 50 percent or more. Do you care? Of course not. Why should you? Most of you don’t live in the UK and none of you eat hay, so what’s the big deal? Let them eat clover!

Actually, there is a reason why we all should care about a hay crisis in the British Isles. A century ago, workers in coal mines carried a canary with them when they went to work. Why? Because if a dangerous lack of oxygen occurred deep underground — usually because methane was leaking into the mine — the canary would stop singing. When the miners saw the poor little bird lying upside down in its cage with its tiny feet pointing toward canary heaven, they knew they had to get out quickly or be asphyxiated.

Hay & Canaries

Is the decrease in hay production a “canary in the coal mine” moment for the UK and the world at large? Maybe. According to The Scottish Farmer, hay production in the eastern part of the UK was down by as much as 50 percent, but favorable rain patterns in the western part lead to record yields.

Andrew Mansbridge, president of the British Hay and Straw Merchants Association, believes the dry, hot summer has hit straw and hay supplies hard. He told The Scottish Farmer, “Straw crops in the east of the country are down around a third on what is typically yielded. When I speak to farmers, they explain that the dry year has meant they have not had the volume of straw they are used to. On top of this, the lack of grass in August meant some were feeding straw in the fields to keep cattle, which has eaten into the supply.

“The going price is around £100 per tonne for barley straw ex-farm in the east, with wheat at £90/t. Quality is definitely there, as the early dry harvest meant everything was baled in perfect conditions. Farmers in the east were aware that straw was looking short and I have spoken to a few who decided to speculate and bale a few more acres and turn the chopper off.

“The weather has hit hay growers. Anything cut earlier in the season will be of good quality, but anyone attempting to make hay from the middle of summer will have been left with just brown stalks. The number of bales looks to be back, with old leys particularly hard hit. Some farmers are telling me some fields are down between a third and a half. Anyone looking for quality hay in England is paying £200/t delivered onto their farm.”

Hay Prices Rise

He noted that some hay is coming into the UK from France for the premium horse market, a difficult task for importers who have to handle the expense of the importation paper work required by post-Brexit rules. Then there are physical hurdles to deal with. Loads from the continent have been restricted in how high they can be on the ferries bringing goods to the UK, which has increased the challenge and resulted in higher costs.

Agriculture merchants and farmers told the BBC recently the amount of hay they have been able to produce has been “seriously limited” this year. Olly Morris, a hay merchant in Berkshire, said he has been struggling to meet customer demand after a dry spring and summer. “Recent rainfall hasn’t helped compensate, and many farmers said it is too little too late,” as their late season crop is little more than brown stalks in the fields where hay usually grows.

Morris said he has had to look for alternative suppliers to meet orders, but the shortage is “a nationwide problem. There is hay coming in from Scotland and Wales, but it is the cost to get it to us from those areas. We are trying our best for our customers to find it where we can.”

Research by the Energy & Climate Intelligence Unit shows the UK is on course for its fifth lowest harvest since records began. Farmers have been using winter stores to feed their livestock this summer because unusually dry weather in spring meant grass for grazing was in short supply.

Weather Or Climate?

Richard Ellis is a professor of crop production at the University of Reading. He told the BBC, “As scientists we talk about the future of climate change but we don’t talk enough about what’s already happened.” He explained that “in a wet year grass will grow a bit, but in a dry year it will stop growing completely. […] Climate change is disrupting the historic pattern of rainfall and of course everything varies from year to year.”

Ellis said long-term studies show “the actual grass growing potential has declined greatly over the last 80 years.” So is this just another case of farming being an occupation that comes with considerable financial risk, or is it a sign that the climate is changing and perhaps it is time to do something about that? The answer, of course, depends on who you ask.

If you put the question to Chris Wright, the fracking billionaire who now heads the US Energy Department, fossil fuels are a gift from God that have lifted billions out of poverty. He also preaches that carbon dioxide is a good thing because it is the basis of photosynthesis, which makes plants grow, which feeds our farm animals, which means we can eat plenty of beef and pork when we sit down to the dinner table

Yahoo News has a different perspective, one that is more in line with the thinking of most CleanTechnica readers. It says: “The UK hay shortage has been just one example of the impacts that rising global temperatures have had on a wide range of industries, and it has been indicative of the sort of challenges the world will increasingly face as heat becomes more severe.

“For decades, experts have warned that releasing large quantities of heat trapping pollution into the atmosphere would cause global average temperatures to increase, making extreme weather events like heat waves more severe. However, what once were academic projections about the not-so-distant future have fast become the current reality.”

Tipping Points

When people change how they think or what they believe in, it is usually because they have reached a tipping point. Think of it like a seesaw. Take two people of equal weight and place them at either end of an imaginary seesaw, and the board between them will be perfectly balanced. But if a bird lands on the shoulder of one of them, that little bit of extra weight can affect the balance and send one end all the way down to the ground.

That imaginary bird is like a canary in a coal mine — a small warning sign with enormous consequences. The debate between weather and climate will go on for some time — paid for in large measure by fossil fuel companies who want to preserve their lucrative revenue model. But someday — probably when we least expect it — a tipping point will be reached. After that happens, the answer will become so obvious that everyone will say, “It’s the climate, of course!”

Maybe the price of hay in Haymarket is not a major consideration in your life, but it is part of the accumulation of human knowledge that will ultimately lead to a rejection of fossil fuels and an embrace of renewable energy. Fossil fuels had their place in time — like blacksmiths and haberdashers — and we do owe much of the progress made since the start of the Industrial Revolution to them.

But now we have alternative means of energy, means that don’t pollute the atmosphere or turn our precious fresh water supplies into cesspools. Just because we did things one way a hundred years ago is no reason we can’t do things differently today. If that means some people will be disadvantaged financially so the rest of us can thrive, so be it. You can’t make an omelet without breaking a few eggs, so let’s get cracking!

Hat tip to Dan Allard, who is an actual hay farmer and knows a thing or two about the business of agriculture. 

Featured photo by Jesse Zheng