York farmer 'will struggle to feed animals' as drought hits hay production
Angela Serino is the director of Beetle Bank Open Farm & Wild Sanctuary in Moor Lane, Murton - a small, open, working farm where the public can visit the animals.
Beetle Bank, which has goats, pigs, alpacas and rabbits, grows its own hay on 10 acres of land to feed the animals through winter until April when farmers typically buy a few bales until the next hay cut.
But with Yorkshire experiencing one of its driest years on record, Ms Serino said Beetle Bank will not be able to operate as usual.
Beetle Bank Open Farm is struggling to operate as usual due to the heat and dry weather. Photo: Beetle Bank Open Farm /PA Wire
The farm usually produces around 50 to 70 big bales of hay a year but is likely to produce about 10 bales this year.
"That's a couple of thousands of pounds down the drain before you get going never mind the feed that you have to buy in to replace that," she said.
"It's stressing me out because our animals are part of the system. You can't just be without them, and we can't be without food for them. It's going to mean more animals will have to go than usual.
"Winter's always a bad time for us because we have very little income coming in and now we'll have a massive food bill to find the money for as well because we'll have to feed our animals hard food and hope that there's plenty of that about."
The farm grows its own hay to feed the animals through winter but isn't able to produce as many bales this year. Photo: Beetle Bank Open Farm /PA WireThe farm director said other local farmers had told her they will have "very little" hay for sale this year.
"This spring when it was really hot and dry, I was thinking should I buy a water canon of some description, and you just think that this is Britain and it will change.
"You don't want to spend £5,000 on some sort of water system that sprinkles the fields when you don't have to and at the end of the day I should have just gone and done it then I wouldn't be in the state I'm in today. It's all a bit of a disaster to be honest."
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Ms Serino is not currently getting any support from the Government.
"There's so many hoops you've got to jump through to actually get something and you have to match the funding. Well, if you don't have any money it's very difficult to get match funding. It's difficult times, and farming is not good."
Ms Serino said the farm had also used a lot more water than usual this year and has also struggled to put up fencing it needed because the ground is "like a rock".
The hot weather has also impacted revenue from visitors with only half the usual number going at the weekend.
She said: "This will be one of the worst Saturdays we've had in a long time."
Yorkshire and North East England has seen an average of just 242.8mm of rain so far in 2025 - less than half the amount that had fallen by this stage last year (542.3mm).
Cumulative rainfall so far this year is the lowest for this part of the country since 1959, when 238.1mm had fallen by July 9.
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