How the drought hit UK farms: Half the harvest, double the bills

Others are trying to farm in a more nature friendly way. Planting mixed grasses which cope better with drought. More trees to provide shade, older varieties of cereals that withstand heat better.

All these cost money, and there are government schemes to support them. But when the latest round of financing opened, it was overwhelmed.

A year’s worth of government grants, more than £250m, was handed out in under six hours in an online scramble “reminiscent of Glastonbury ticket sales”, as Wiltshire farmer Tom Collins put it.

“It just shows how desperate farmers are,” he adds.

“It’s so hard to make a living from food people fall over themselves to get these environmental grants, and then they’re swallowed up in no time. It’s so unfair.”

A spokesperson for the Department of Environment, Food and Rural Affairs says: “In anticipation of high demand, ministers decided to allocate an additional £20m to the fund, on top the £50m announced by the prime minister in August, so that we could fund as many agreements as possible.”

Farming Minister Stephen Morgan adds that the Sustainable Farming Incentive had been designed to be simpler to apply for and that farmers had “responded in force”.

Tom Kimber was one of those who missed out. He went online to apply for an extension of an environmental scheme his farm was already running.

“We plant a mix of different grasses that cope better in the drought,” he explains. “But they cost more, so we need the grant.”

A glitch in the Defra computer system left him locked out of the website for hours. When he got back in, the money had all gone.

Farming, he says, is not easy at the moment.

“When you’re being squeezed from both ends, the milk price is 10p litre below the cost of production, and costs are going up all the time.

“You’re just forever hoping for a better day, but hope doesn’t keep you in business.”