Why is it so wet?
According to the Met Office, the south of England experienced its wettest February in 2024 since 1836, and England has recorded its fourth wettest February on record. But this was not anomalous. Historic data also shows that extremely warm and wet winters are becoming more common. Six of the 10 warmest winters on record were in the 21st century, and four of these also rank in the top 10 wettest years on record.
What is driving this trend?
Scientific consensus is anthropocentric (i.e. manmade) climate change is the primary cause. According to the Met Office, as the climate continues to warm, the UK can expect winters to continue getting warmer and wetter. Its projections suggest that, under an emissions pathway in line with current global policies, the average UK winter by 2080-99 will be 2 degrees warmer and 11% wetter than they were in 1981-2000.
Why is this a problem?
Climate change has a huge impact on ecological wellbeing, which it turn impacts human society at almost every level. But taking just the most recent symptom of this climate change, being the England’s incredibly wet weather, one of the worst affected sectors is agriculture.
Farmers’ woes
Record rainfall, which has left many fields underwater and otherwise too muddy to access by vehicle, has meant farmers in many parts of the UK were unable to plant Spring crops such as potatoes, vegetables and certain cereals. Many of the crops that farmers were able to plant are of poor quality, with some rotting in the saturated ground.
The wet weather has also meant a high mortality rate for lambs, even hardier breeds which are used to exposed hillside climates, while some dairy cows have had to be kept indoors, meaning they will produce less milk. The pasture they would otherwise have grazed will become overgrown and of a lower quality.
All of this compounds to create a dire financial outlook for farmers. Agricultural groups have said the UK will be more reliant on imports, but similarly wet conditions in European countries such as France and Germany, as well as drought in other food-producing areas (and not to mention military conflict in Ukraine and elsewhere), will mean there is simply less food to import, leading to inflation and potentially shortages.
Catalyst for change
Forward-thinking farmers and landowners recognise that 2024’s Spring-planting season was not a one-off, but the latest in a series of increasingly unpredictable weather patterns, compounding to make any agricultural enterprise even riskier than normal. Diversifying away from food production is the most obvious solution to improving financial and operational resilience.

This does not have to mean stopping food production, as some seem to believe, and can involve monetising the ‘natural capital’ byproducts of what many farmers and landowners are already doing, such as improving soil health with low tillage and inputs, and enhancing marginal habitats such as hedgerows and wetlands.
A first step is to register your land with aka.land, and be part of a large and growing platform connecting landowners with buyers of natural capital (nutrient, carbon and biodiversity net gain offsets), as well as having privileged access to sector specialists and resource to help you access the natural capital market, even from a standing start.