Adam Henson, best known as a presenter on Countryfile, has made a poignant visit to the challenges his Gloucestershire-based farm has endured due to persistent adverse weather over the past three years.
As co-owner of Cotswold Farm Park, Henson offered a candid update on this season’s harvest, which has fallen short of expectations. The farm has suffered from an unrelenting sequence of extreme weather events, resulting in poor crop performance and difficult financial repercussions.
In a recent video posted on the Cotswold Farm Park’s YouTube channel, Adam guided viewers through the 650-hectare farm as the harvest began. What should have been an exciting period for the farm was instead overshadowed by the continuing unfavourable conditions.
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“Although I love living on top of the Cotswolds at around a thousand feet, today there’s a breeze and some cloud cover,” Adam remarked. “However, it has been absolutely bone dry here for over a month.”
He detailed how the lack of rainfall has affected the livestock: “Our lambs will need to be fed hard food, and we’ll have to bring in silage because the grass has completely browned and there’s very little left for grazing.”
The farm cultivates various crops, including winter wheat, winter barley, and spring barley, alongside livestock management and conservation efforts. Adam shared that this year’s harvest arrived unusually early, with wheat being harvested two to three weeks ahead of the norm.
“Due to the hot weather and our thin, stony soil, yields have been disappointing,” he said. “Winter wheat and barley yields are roughly one to one and a half tonnes less per hectare, which significantly affects the farm’s profitability.”
Coupled with low global commodity prices for wheat and barley, despite a recent slight increase, profits from grain production have been minimal.
These struggles come on the heels of three challenging years for the farm. “This year’s harvest was meant to be a bonanza, but it’s actually been made worse following a severe drought last year and an excessively wet 2024,” Adam explained. “It’s been really tough.”
Despite the difficulties, Adam’s optimistic view of farming remains intact. “Farming is one of the best jobs in the world,” he said. Nevertheless, he admitted, “Right now, arable farming is hard. Really hard.”
Looking to the future, Adam emphasised the uncontrollable nature of weather and its impact on farming: “There’s nothing you can do about the weather. You can’t fight the baking sun that dries out crops, causing them to shrivel rather than ripen naturally.”
After enduring another arduous harvest, Henson expressed a hopeful outlook: “We could certainly do with a very good 2027. All we can do as farmers is keep our fingers crossed and hope for a better year ahead.”
Cotswold Farm Park, originally established by Adam’s father Joe Henson in 1971, has been under Adam’s management since 1999. The farm remains a beloved local attraction, combining active farming with the opportunity for visitors to experience over 50 flocks and herds of rare-breed animals.