Recent years have exposed the fragility of global food systems. Climate shocks have disrupted harvests and strained supply chains, while volatile markets for fertiliser, gas and other inputs have driven production costs to record highs. At the same time, conventional farming practices are accelerating land degradation, undermining long-term productivity.
This is the first in a series of briefings we’ll be publishing over the course of the year analysing the impact of extreme weather on food system resilience around the world.
Key points:
- The UK has experienced consecutive seasonal climate extremes since 2022 – a summer drought, a prolonged wet winter, and another drought – with little recovery between them. Each of these events has placed upwards pressure on farming costs and food prices.
- Our analysis estimates that the farmgate prices of a traditional red meat, lamb, rose by between 11% and 25% after each of these periods of extreme weather.
- For households that regularly buy lamb, the cost of these climate events has been substantial, adding up to GBP 168 to grocery bills for lamb purchased over the period.
- The impact is especially visible at Easter, when lamb takes centre stage. Our estimates suggest that a 2 kg leg of lamb – a traditional Easter roast – has carried a climate premium at every Easter since 2023. Consumers have paid 7-21% more for their Easter lamb joint roasts than they would have without these climate events.
- These findings show that the cost of seasonal climate extremes is reaching household budgets through the food system, even in a temperate, high-income country with a well-developed agricultural sector. As climate extremes become more frequent, these impacts are likely to rise.
The UK’s climate is changing, and farmers are already feeling the impacts
The UK’s climate is becoming warmer, wetter and sunnier as a result of human-caused climate change. The Met Office confirms that temperatures have risen about 0.25°C per decade since the 1980s, with more frequent extreme heat, fewer frosts and steadily warming coastal waters. At the same time, winter rainfall and heavy precipitation events are increasing, and snow is becoming less frequent.
The region has experienced consecutive seasonal climate extremes in recent years. Summer 2022 saw extensive and prolonged record-breaking hot and dry conditions, which reduced crop yields and stunted grass growth in grazing fields. This forced farmers to dig into their winter silage reserves to feed their animals.
While the 2022/2023 winter was relatively unremarkable, being slightly milder, sunnier and drier than average, this was followed by an unusually wet winter-autumn storm season in the UK and Ireland in 2023/2024, leading to widespread flooding and disruption. Scientists estimate that rainfall from October 2023 to March 2024 was around 25% higher than it would have been without climate change — and this anomaly was made at least four times more likely because of a warming planet.
Non-stop rain submerged fields, leaving farmers unable to sow their crops and forcing them to keep cattle and sheep indoors for longer before putting them out to pasture. Poor harvests and unforeseen expenses resulted in farmers claiming almost GBP 60 million in compensation from the government’s farming recovery fund between October 2023 and March 2024.
Unpredictable weather leads to unmanageable risks for farmers
The winter of 2024/2025 was relatively mild and slightly drier than average in the UK, but spring and summer 2025 were the warmest on record, with the summer temperature anomaly made 70 times more likely because of climate change. Heatwaves caused several regions to become water-stressed, which in turn reduced fodder stocks, drawing concerns over rising prices. UK farmers are estimated to have lost more than GBP 800 million due to smaller harvests as a result of the drought.
Increasingly unpredictable seasons and unusual weather conditions mean farmers are questioning whether they can continue taking on the risks of investing in particular crops given the growing uncertainty around returns. The 10 years leading up to 2024 saw three of five worst harvests on record, placing growing pressure on the agricultural sector.
Weather extremes place upward pressure on meat prices
Climate impacts such as drought, excessive rainfall and heatwaves place upward pressure on farming costs and food prices through several mechanisms. In the UK, sheep and cattle production is predominantly pasture-based, meaning animals rely heavily on grass for feed. Farmers typically conserve surplus grass as hay or silage to sustain animals over winter or during periods when pasture growth slows.
When extreme weather reduces grass growth – for example, during drought or when soils become waterlogged – these stored forage reserves can be depleted earlier than expected. Farmers may then need to purchase additional feed, increasing production costs. At the same time, poor pasture conditions can slow animal weight gain or encourage farmers to sell animals earlier than planned to reduce feed demand. This can reduce the total amount of lamb reaching the market and push prices higher.
Together, these pressures can tighten livestock supply and contribute to higher meat prices, though the net effect on farmgate prices may take several months to materialise as short-run adjustments – such as purchasing supplemental hay when forage fails – work through the market.
Higher production costs translate into higher consumer prices
Reports from the end of 2025 show that meat prices in the UK have been rising amid tightening supply and increased production impacts, including from poor weather and disease.1Livestock diseases in Great Britain are also linked to climate change, which is changing their occurrence, distribution and prevalence. The Agriculture and Horticulture Development Board (AHDB) reports that red meat prices have increased significantly in recent years, reflecting rising input costs and pressure on livestock production systems.
Beef and veal were reported by the Energy & Climate Intelligence Unit (ECIU) as two of six food products most strongly pushing up UK food inflation due to climate impacts since 2020. Average price increases for these six items were around 15.6% year-on-year, far higher than the 2.8% increase for other food items. Beef price increases have been attributed to poor grass growth.
Food price inflation, particularly for groceries, has been a major driver of the UK’s cost-of-living crisis. In November 2025, food prices were 38.6% higher than they were five years earlier, and households are still paying more for groceries compared with a year ago as of January 2026. A late 2025 survey indicated that 16% of UK households go hungry because food is unaffordable.
Climate extremes are adding to already-stretched household budgets
To further unpack the scale of climate impacts on meat prices, we analysed how recent climate conditions have influenced the price of lamb in Great Britain, where it is a traditional red meat. Lamb provides a useful case study: the UK is a major producer and is largely self-sufficient in sheep meat, and production relies heavily on pasture-based systems that are sensitive to weather conditions.2The UK typically produces in excess of domestic lamb consumption and is a net exporter in most years, with self-sufficiency recorded at 114% in 2023. Some cuts are imported every year, particularly during Easter, because the mix of cuts consumers demand does not always match the cuts produced from each animal, though total import volumes have declined since 2020. The near-closed nature of the UK lamb market is central to the clean identification of the climate signal in our model: with limited import substitution available, domestic supply constraints transmit more directly to farmgate prices.
How has lamb production been affected by recent climate extremes?
2022 drought: Exceptionally dry and hot conditions caused farmers to start using up their winter forage reserves. Forage shortages meant livestock producers were pressured to send lambs to slaughter under-finished, resulting in reduced returns. Drought pressure on forage and feed production, combined with high feed costs, resulted in a higher-than-usual carryover of lambs into 2023.
2023/2024 wet winter: Persistent wet weather limited the number of dry days needed to cut, dry and bale grass for hay, delaying harvest and reducing hay quality due to increased risks of mould and spoilage. Wet weather made it harder to finish animals through late 2023, with December recording the lowest monthly clean sheep kill since 2019. Carcass weights fell in 2023 aswet weather and higher feed costs impacted finishing.
2025 drought: Both grass and lamb growth rates were impacted by hot, dry conditions in 2025. The lamb sector is reported to have faced challenges through the year, including drought conditions and the prevalence of midge-borne diseases, with the UK lamb market remaining incredibly sensitive to forage conditions and weather patterns. Fodder supplies have been ‘relatively tight’ following the drought, with concerns being raised that heavy rainfall in early 2026 has further restricted grass growth, driving up demand for hay and straw.
Our methodology explained
Using Met Office data on rainfall and temperature, alongside farm and market data from the AHDB, we looked at how unusually wet or dry conditions have affected lamb prices in Great Britain (England, Scotland and Wales) since 2023.3Northern Ireland is excluded as it was missing data from the AHDB GB price datasets. Rather than assuming rainfall affects prices within a single month, we used averages over the previous 6 and 12 months to capture both the shorter-term and longer-term pass-through of climate anomalies on prices.4The model is estimated by ordinary least squares (OLS) on monthly data from 2019 to early 2026. Because monthly price data can exhibit serial correlation (where one month’s price is partly predictable from the last) all statistical inference is reported using Newey–West corrected standard errors, which remain valid under these conditions. As the model relies on a relatively short time series and the climate variables are correlated by construction, we subject the results to a number of checks, outlined in the technical appendix.
Our model controls for temperature anomalies (deviations from seasonal norms, which capture heat stress and its effects on grass growth and animal welfare), monthly sheep slaughter volumes (a direct measure of how much domestic supply is reaching the market, which exerts downward pressure on prices when volumes are high), seasonal patterns in lamb prices (which account for predictable within-year cycles driven by the breeding calendar and demand around occasions such as Easter), and the price of big bale hay.
Hay price serves as the primary proxy for feed costs in the model. Sheep in Great Britain spend most of the year grazing on grass, but farmers rely on stored forage to bridge periods when grass growth is insufficient, such as during climate extremes. Hay price therefore reflects the market cost of this buffer: when drought or waterlogging reduces grass growth or quality, demand for stored forage increases and hay prices rise, transmitting the climate signal into farm-level costs.5As a robustness check, we also ran the model substituting hay with observed grass growth data from GrassCheck GB, which confirms the underlying biological mechanism. We thank Emily Udall and Matthew Harris from the GrassCheck team for providing monthly-level data on grass growth from 2017 to 2026. Further, as a negative control, we also tested the same model using pork and found that rolling soy price windows were consistently the dominant predictor of pork prices, rather than rainfall, which is what we would expect as pig production relies on feeds derived from soy rather than on grazed grass, and therefore UK rainfall conditions should not (and do not) transmit to pork prices.
Together, these controls ensure that the rainfall effects we report are isolated from other factors that independently move lamb prices.6We also tested a model that adds the FAO global ovine meat price index to assess if the UK rainfall signal is actually just proxying for global meat market movements. The outcome was nonsignificant, consistent with the UK lamb market being largely self-contained and providing further support for the contribution of local climate conditions to price in the model.
Figure 1
Our findings show extreme weather causes a meaningful increase in prices
Our analysis found that extreme weather events have repeatedly pushed up farmgate lamb prices – the net price received by the farmer at market – in Great Britain.7Our headline estimates focus on the three events from 2022 onwards. However, the model also identifies upward price pressure during 2020–2021, consistent with the exceptionally wet winters of 2019/2020 and 2020/2021. However, estimates for the earliest part of the study period are less reliable because the 12-month rolling window requires a full year of prior data to stabilise, and the model’s control variables (particularly hay prices and slaughter volumes) have fewer preceding observations to establish baseline patterns. The 2022 drought is estimated to have raised farmgate prices by around 11%. The 2023/2024 wet winter had a larger and more sustained effect, with prices estimated to have been around 25% higher than they would have been under normal conditions. The 2025 drought added a further estimated 13% on top of this.8We deflated lamb prices by the ONS food CPI to confirm the climate signal is not an artefact of broader food price inflation over the study period. Both rainfall coefficients remain statistically significant, confirming the results reflect genuine climate transmission rather than inflationary noise.
For households, the impact on grocery bills depends on how much lamb they buy. The average UK household (those who buy lamb only occasionally) would have spent almost GBP 13 more on lamb given the combined cost of the 2022 drought, 2023/2024 wet winter, and 2025 drought amounts. But for the 2.6 million households that buy lamb regularly, purchasing around 24 kg per year, the picture is considerably more stark.9Average household consumption was derived from AHDB Worldpanel GB primary lamb purchase volumes divided by 28.4 million UK households (ONS, 2023), giving 1.8 kg per household. The regular buying households were derived from the ONS Living Costs and Food Survey (2024), which gave a penetration rate of 9.3%. Applied to the 28.4 million households, this implies 2.6 million lamb-buying households. Per-household consumption is estimated at 24.3 kg per year based on the average of two cross-checks: one derived from the survey’s mean weekly lamb spend per buying household (22.7 kg/yr) and the other from the total UK retail sales divided across the 2.6 million buying households (25.9 kg/yr). Household consumption and cost estimates use UK-wide figures, which include Northern Ireland, while the econometric model is based on England, Wales and Scotland.
These households faced an estimated GBP 39 in additional annual costs from the 2022 drought alone, rising to GBP 134 after the 2023/2024 wet winter and GBP 168 once price increases related to the 2025 summer drought were accounted for.10The 2022 drought and 2023/2024 wet winter costs are each calculated over a full year. The 2025 drought cost covers only the eight months (March to October) during which the drought was actively pushing prices up. It also accounts for the fact that the wet winter was still affecting prices at the same time, so the two effects are not double-counted. Under full pass-through from farmgate to retail, these costs would fall entirely on consumers.11Our consumer cost figures assume full pass-through of farmgate prices to retail prices. Studies of UK meat markets show that producer and retail prices are closely linked over time. For example, Tiffin & Dawson (2000) find a long-run relationship between UK lamb producer and retail prices, indicating that prices across the supply chain move together.
Easter Sunday lamb roast centrepieces are costing more because of climate change
To make these findings more tangible, we estimated how much climate events have added to the cost of a traditional Easter lamb roast over recent years. Easter is the largest driver of household lamb purchases in the UK, and a roasting joint, typically a whole or half leg, is the centrepiece (Figure 2).
We took a 2 kg lamb roasting joint as a representative Easter purchase and asked how much more the joint cost because of the preceding climate event, compared to what it would have cost under normal weather conditions. We did this for every Easter from 2023 to 2026, each of which fell in the wake of a different climate episode – the 2022 summer drought, an emerging signal from the 2023/2024 wet winter, the full signal from the 2023-2024 wet winter, and the 2025 summer drought.12In years where rainfall is close to the 1991–2020 baseline, the model predicts no material climate effect on lamb prices. The premiums reported here therefore represent the additional cost attributable to specific climate deviations from normal conditions.
Our findings highlight that consumers have paid a climate premium on their Easter lamb roasts every year at least since 2023 as a result of climate extremes. While the 2022 summer drought increased the leg roast cost by 6.5% (GBP 1.8), the wet winter of 2023/2024 added an extra 17.5% – or GBP 5 – to the price of a lamb roast at Easter 2024, and 21% – or GBP 6.8 – to the price at Easter 2025. The summer drought in 2025 means that consumers could be paying 13.2% more (GBP 4) for their lamb roast at Easter 2026. Over these four consecutive Easters, the cumulative additional cost attributable to climate events amounts to around GBP 18.
Figure 2
Successive climate extremes keep pressure on lamb prices, offering little relief for consumers
Across the three climate events of 2022-2025, consumers have paid an estimated additional GBP 13 to GBP 168 in total for their lamb grocery bill, depending on how much lamb their household typically purchases.
Our model suggests that pressure on consumer prices may be growing as farmers face compounding challenges on input costs. We found that successive climate extremes could be eroding the resilience of the UK hay market over time. The sensitivity of hay prices to rainfall deficits has grown stronger each year across our 2019-2025 sample, consistent with progressive depletion of carryover buffer stocks following the 2022 drought, the 2023/2024 wet winter, and the 2025 drought. In 2025, hay prices were running approximately 20% above what current climate conditions alone would predict.13The 20% figure is derived from the residual of a regression of log monthly hay prices on concurrent rainfall anomaly, temperature anomaly, and calendar-month fixed effects, estimated over 2019–2025. The residual represents the portion of hay price variation not explained by current-season climate conditions. A separate test found that the sensitivity of hay prices to rainfall deficits strengthened significantly over the sample period, providing independent statistical support for the cumulative depletion interpretation.
This means that the hay market buffer that normally cushions price shocks has been progressively drawn down by successive events.14GrassCheck observational records responded to climate events as expected: below-average growth in the 2022 drought year and again in 2024 and 2025, with 2025 recording the lowest mean growth in the dataset. However, the grass system showed recovery between events – 2023 produced above-average growth despite immediately following the drought year – suggesting that the biological system remains resilient while the market system does not. Because our estimates measure each climate event against a hay market that was already stressed by prior events, they are likely to understate the full consumer cost of the 2022–2025 period of climate extremes.15Our consumer cost estimates capture the direct impact of each climate event on lamb prices in that season. They do not account for the fact that hay prices in 2025 were already elevated by the cumulative legacy of prior climate events, meaning the baseline from which we measure the cost of each new shock is itself already climate-affected. The true cost of climate extremes to consumers, measured against a world with no climate stress at all, is therefore likely to be higher than the figures we report.
These findings show that the cost of seasonal climate extremes is already reaching household budgets through the food system, even in a temperate, high-income country with a well-developed agricultural sector. With extreme weather events such as heatwaves and droughts becoming increasingly frequent in the UK, agricultural production is expected to face greater disruption, with implications for farm incomes, food supply and the cost of living.
For a detailed description of the methods and model parameters, please see the technical appendix.
