UK farmers rejoice on early harvest despite rainfall

It may have felt like the rainiest summer in years but Britain's arable farmers have been loving it.

Figures out today showed that the grain harvest is 90% completed two weeks earlier than last year.

Only a small number of farms, mostly in rain-sodden Scotland and the North-East have yet to bring in their wheat and barley.

"The key harvesting weeks of August were really good for harvesting. It didn't actually rain that much," said Susan Twining, analyst at agricultural research group HGCA, who compiled the figures.

Last year three abysmally wet August weeks meant farmers could not start the harvest until far later than usual. That had a knock-on effect for the total yield this year because harvesting on the wet ground damaged the soil so seeds could not be planted in some fields.

Yields will also be lower than the 15 million tonne UK average this year because of the wet July.

However, farmers will not enjoy a very profitable year. They had to pay record prices for nitrogen fertilizer a year ago because of the commodities market boom. With the collapse of that boom, nitrogen has fallen in price from more than £150 a tonne to about £85.