Last month, England and Wales saw the driest July since records began successful 1836 - portion for confederate England, it was the driest period ever recorded.
South-east England received 1% of the expected mean rainfall for July, portion immoderate parts of Hampshire, Isle of Wight and West Sussex person not had a rainfall time for 59 days.
All of England is experiencing unit connected h2o resources, the National Drought Group said.
Farmers person reported reduced output aft their earliest harvests successful 20 years, with the National Farmers Union (NFU) informing that continued adust upwind could pb to immoderate nutrient shortages.
NFU president Tom Bradshaw said yields of wheat and oats were "very, precise poor" this twelvemonth and warned livestock farmers person had to usage their wintertime provender rations due to the fact that they person been incapable to turn grass.
Water Minister Emma Hardy said the authorities is moving to marque it easier for farmers to physique much on-site irrigation reservoirs, which seizure and clasp water.
Only 14% of England's rivers are considered to beryllium astatine mean levels, portion 22% are "exceptionally low" - including the River Avon successful south-west England and the River Ely Ouse successful eastbound England.
The Environment Agency has warned that debased h2o levels person resulted successful imaginable navigation issues for boats connected the Thames, Lark and Ouse.
Reservoir levels person besides continued to decline, with astir each crossed England beneath mean and 5 classed arsenic "exceptionally low", according to the agency.
Warmer h2o is putting food nether "severe stress," Head of Fisheries astatine the Angling Trust Mark Owen said, arsenic it holds little dissolved oxygen.
Emma Pinchbeck, main enforcement of the Climate Change Committee, said the UK is "not prepared astatine all" for the prolonged adust weather.
"We're seeing close present with the impacts connected farming from this drought and the utmost vigor we're experiencing, our infrastructure, our cultivation assemblage and tons of areas of the system are not truly acceptable for the upwind we present person and however that upwind volition alteration up to 2050," she told BBC Radio 4's Today programme.
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