Andy Burnham visits potato farm to announce new drought funding

Prime Minister Andy Burnham has visited a Cornish potato farm to hear first-hand accounts of growers struggling with drought and extreme heat before announcing a new package of support.

Burnham joined NFU president Tom Bradshaw at FG Pryor & Son, a Truro-based potato producer, where he announced a new package of funding with farming minister Stephen Morgan.

This includes £15 million of funding for reservoirs, as part of a wider £65mn cash injection to the Sustainable Farming Incentive (SFI) designed to help farmers tackle drought and longer-term resilience.

Burnham’s personal Instagram also published a video of the PM holding an undersized potato, while explaining that growers are facing a reduced harvest due to the drought.

It comes as FPJ reported last week that English potato growers are facing lower yields and smaller tubers, as the heatwave has reduced crop growth at an early stage in the season.

The full government support package includes:

• An additional £50mn for Sustainable Farming Incentive 2026 Window 2, taking the total budget for SFI26 to £290mn and allowing more farmers to apply. There will also be temporary adjustments to the scheme, such as allowing farmers more time to establish actions if seed planting has been delayed. 
• Reducing unnecessary barriers and updating planning guidance around reservoir construction.
• Funding up to £15mn to build on-farm reservoirs, via the reopening of the Water Management Grant. 
• Improved access to water during drought conditions, including that the Environment Agency will prioritise requests for short term variations to abstraction licence conditions.

Writing on LinkedIn, Bradshaw said he is “encouraged by the fact the Prime Minister has recognised the pressure on the farming industry”.

Speaking about the £15mn of funding for reservoirs, he said: “If this is delivered alongside meaningful changes to planning, reduced bureaucracy and abstraction reform it is very welcome investment in desperately needed on farm infrastructure that underpins the resilience of the food system.”

The UK faced its fifth heatwave of the year last week, along with record low rainfall, with harvests from brassicas to peas falling drastically as a result.

“Crisis is a word that is often used but with inflation driven by the Iran war, yields decimated by the worst drought in 50yrs, horticultural crops baked in the ground and livestock farmers already using winter feed as well as dealing with a serious Bluetongue (BTV) outbreak - this is a crisis,” Bradshaw wrote.

He also said the NFU has made it “very clear” that the new funding does not deal with the immediate and building cashflow and confidence crisis on farm.

NFU deputy president and water availability lead, Paul Tompkins, said: “This announcement rightly recognises that it will take a combination of approaches: improved planning to remove unnecessary barriers and make it easier to build farm infrastructure, simplified abstraction arrangements so farmers can access water more easily and financial support to help invest in farm reservoirs and equipment to build long-term food resilience.”