Wet weather 'has hurt morale of Northern Ireland's farmers' says UFU boss William Irvine

William Irvine, a Co Armagh dairy farmer, told the News Letter that it has had "a significant enough effect on agriculture generally".

As previously reported, Northern Ireland as a whole got an average of 29% more rain in August than usual – however this rose to 48% more in Tyrone and Fermanagh.

(However, the Met Office says for summer as a whole, Northern Ireland actually got 1% less rainfall than usual – though the number of days on which it rained was actually up slightly).

Mr Irvine said the unsettled nature of the weather has caused headaches.

"There was no proper prolonged period of good weather this summer," he said.

"So we're now into autumn 2024 and the harvesting of crops has been a big challenge.

"Even in areas that didn't get as much rain as the north and the west it was still hard to get a three-or-four day settled period to allow them to do what they needed to do."

For crop farmers in the north and west (such as those growing winter wheat and barley), harvesting conditions have been "extremely difficult – and if they're harvesting damp grain there's significant costs in energy to dry the grain".

And for livestock farmers, "in the worst affected areas a lot of livestock has had to be housed early" due to muddy ground.

"It's has a cumulative effect around from various angles that increase the pressure over the whole system," he said.

"It's quite significant. There's a morale effect and a financial effect, and it's significant enough.

"I'm talking to guys from the north and west of the Province and they have significant numbers of their livestock housed which is eating into the feedstocks they have this winter.

"I suppose for people my age the one year they all talk about is 1985. I don't think it's as bad as that now, but in some small areas it may be close to that.

"To be honest farmers are used to dealing with the challenges of weather, but it's the prolonged period of dodgy weather that's grinding them down a bit this year.

"I think everybody needs three to four weeks of an Indian summer before proper winter starts."