Inside the Essex ‘drought room’ testing crops for climate change

“The conditions we have seen this summer have placed huge stress on crop production in the UK, and we know that is only going to continue,” said Cavanagh, director of the university’s plant productivity group. “This facility gives us the ability to test the conditions that we know are coming down the pipeline before they actually do.”

Each room at the university’s Smart Technology Experimental Plant Suite (Steps) provides different conditions to model different climates. Light, heat and humidity can be altered throughout the day to mimic a field in Lincolnshire or Cambridgeshire or even Bangladesh, in conditions modelled for 2025 or 2075. Water intake, photosynthesis rate, leaf size, pigmentation and crop yield are monitored to see how the plants respond.

The team is also trialling crop varieties to identify those that are most resilient to heat and drought — as well as experimenting with genetically modified crops to find traits that can cope better with a warming world.

Andrew Pitts, 60, who farms 800 hectares of wheat, barley, peas and oats in Northamptonshire with his brother William, 63, agreed that new approaches are needed.

“We’ve had a really, really tough year,” he said. “We’ve had no useful rain since March. Usually we’d be looking at getting 10 to 12 tonnes of wheat per hectare. We’ve just had six to seven tonnes per hectare.”

He and his brother are experimenting with regenerative agricultural techniques to boost their take. Rather than ploughing their fields, they drill their seeds directly into the soil. And they make sure there is always a crop in the field — even if it is a “green manure” which puts goodness back into the soil.

“A 1 per cent increase in organic matter in your soil holds 330,000 litres per hectare of water,” he said. “That is really quite astonishing. If it’s holding the water, it’s not going into the brook and down to flood the town in the autumn. And that extra water in the soil is worth an extra half tonne to a tonne of crop production per hectare.”

It is not just new techniques that could be adopted, as British farmers learn to cope with new conditions. They could be growing different crops entirely.

A report published in January by the UK Centre for Ecology & Hydrology found that as it becomes warmer, and traditional crops such as wheat become harder to grow, alternatives such as oranges, okra and soybeans could take their place.

Some farmers are already trying their luck. Hodmedod’s, a company growing pulses, grains and seeds, harvested its first chickpea crop in Norfolk in 2019. British wine is increasingly well established, and not just in Sussex, Kent and other mild parts of southern England. The changing climate means vineyards are spreading north, with about 16 vineyards now running in Yorkshire and at least one in Scotland.

But Tom Lancaster, land, food and farming analyst at the Energy & Climate Intelligence Unit, argued that adjusting growing techniques was far more practical than growing new crops entirely.

“Although there will be opportunities in some areas to grow new crops, you can’t just move all the infrastructure and processing facilities needed to grow wheat from Cambridgeshire to Cumbria, even if the soil or terrain was suitable.”

He added: “Climate impacts on UK farming are now reaching the point at which many farmers can no longer cope. This has huge implications for our rural economy and communities, as well as our food production. More support to build the resilience of farmers and our food system to these impacts should now be viewed as a food security imperative.”

At Essex University, Cavanagh pointed out that the climate required to successfully grow crops such as okra would not be comfortable for the rest of us.

In one stifling humid room, with the temperature set to 28C, the team is experimenting to see which crops can thrive in such conditions. “Step into the future,” Cavanagh said. “It’s not very nice.” Her colleague Pallavi Singh is growing rice there to see which varieties require the least water.

In another room, the team grows onions in vertical “aeroponics” towers — a technique that requires no soil. The plants’ roots are instead sprayed with a nutrient-rich water mist. Crucially, this means they avoid the soil-borne viruses that are spreading north with climate change. Different “light recipes”, with varied tones of reds or blues, are tested to see how they affect the vegetables’ flavour.

Cavanagh said: “We have to produce more food for a growing population, without encroaching on more natural land, and in a climate that’s not going to make it easy. If we don’t have the tools to address that, we are stuffed.”