Surrey Farmer: "I've seen nothing like it in my 40 years farming"
A Surrey farmer told us that the weather over the past year has been 'mad' for arable farming
This summer was the hottest UK summer on record with an average temperature of 16.10C, however it wasn't just the temperature that has meant it was a manic year for farming.
Peter Wright is the manager of Burgate farm in Surrey and also a board member of the NFU (National Farmers Union). He says that since September last year it has been crazy.
"I've been farming here for the last 40 years and it has been the most difficult 12 months. That's from September 24 through till August 25 has just been mad on the weather front really. We had last September and October when it never stopped raining.
We had then a fairly wet winter after that through to the 27th of February. And then it didn't rain again, well, basically all summer."
Wright added that going forward, he doesn't expect the weather to be any more predictable
"The problem we have is that the weather is so unpredictable. Now we have no idea. I mean, if you go back 20 years, we all within reason knew what the weather was going to do.
Yes, we had a wet few weeks and maybe we had a dry few weeks. We seem to get long periods of whatever we get now.
So for argument's sake, last autumn we had ten weeks where it really never stopped raining, and through this summer we probably had 10 or 12 weeks where we got no rain at all."
He spoke about the knock on effect this can have for all types of farming
"It doesn't matter whether you're a livestock farmer or an arable farmer, it's very difficult to manage that because we only get one crop a year, we only get one chance to have a harvest.
If the weather goes against us and we have a poor harvest, we've got to live with that for the next 12 months."
Peter ended by saying that people should maybe have sympathy for a farmer is they were to see a field that is struggling
"The people who live in Surrey or anywhere actually that look over the hedge at the countryside, I'd like to think they appreciate what we're doing, the work we're putting in.
But if the weather goes really, really against us, what you're looking at over the hedge doesn't look quite so pretty. That's not because the guy's a bad farmer, it's just because he's been beaten by the weather."