Could future water scarcity mean shorter not longer growing seasons for UK farmers?

Increased investment is being poured (excuse the pun) into securing water supplies for farmers and growers in East Anglia. On-farm reservoirs are flying through planning permission and food giants such as PepsiCo are investing heavily in technology, such as the ‘i-crop’ to ensure optimal use of water.

However climate change means water availability is going to become increasingly problematic for growers in the East and technology and infrastructure can only go so far. A shift to new crops is much touted as the next natural step, but perhaps the answer lies more in how we crop rather than what we crop...

Common sense would assume that we should look for our ‘climate analogue’ crops to the south, where crops can tolerate drier and warmer conditions. But rather than a shift to new exotic crops some growers are talking more earnestly about growing shorter season crops that due to less time in the ground require less water.

At higher latitudes, short season crops are the norm, due to limited day light hours and these crops are typically smaller in size as a result. But in the future could we see limited water availability in the UK also sparking a shift to short season micro-crops, despite our lengthening growing season? Not an obvious or profitable choice right now, but reaching a ceiling in the use of technology and infrastructure to irrigate the UK’s food bowl may just mean this is an adaptation born out of necessity.