“The sheep is very bad trade at the moment with the grass and everything burning. In marts, the prices are very bad and some sheep are going home.
"Some farmers are selling hoggets for the price they paid for the lambs last year, after feeding them for the winter.
"We have no grass now and I was talking to a couple of farmers the other day who said they will have to start feeding sheep shortly if the rain doesn’t come. It’s desperate.
"The store lamb trade is very poor as well. No one is buying store lambs because there is no grass for people to feed them. Generally, a tillage farmer or someone who makes hay or silage will buy store lambs, keep them on until December or January and make a few pounds from them, but they have no grass to buy them so it’s all backing up.”
“The big thing this year with the drought is the fact that in any normal five-year cycle there would be ups and downs, but we have been in a down for years. This just puts a spotlight on what’s already a difficult challenging situation.
Like a lot of things in this country, we are coming to a cliff edge
"Yields are back across the board and what underlines [it is that] this drought has hit both spring and winter crops. Normally you would get a bit of relief from one or the other, but this has gone on so long and has been such an extent that it’s unprecedented.
"The tillage sector in particular has been on its knees for a long time. We need help, we need things to be done and I don’t think were really being listened to.
"Like a lot of things in this country, we are coming to a cliff edge and if people really value food security, home production, they need to start paying for it and start looking out for the people who are carrying out that work.”
“It’s been tough. My farm is a very dry farm, probably one of the first farms to dry off in this area.
"I am feeding the last six weeks, since the beginning of July. I am eating into my winter allocation of silage.
I am farming my farm a long time and I do have a month’s feed that I grow extra, but that’s well and truly gone.
"Everyone is in the same boat, we will all be after the same silage and feed. There is loads of feed in the country – it is just to get it fluent.
"Malting barley in this area, rejection rates are at 60%, basically it was burnt in. Winter wheat the same, some terrible winter wheat crops on light ground.
"Winter barley looked a smashing crop all year and one I was looking forward to cut and it was burnt in, just a miserable yield.”
“The grain was a disaster. Yields are back 2.5 tonnes or even less. I don’t know how bills are going to be paid, that’s the problem.
"Fertiliser prices are up and everything else is down. I have never seen it as bad; the weather is everything really.
"We should only be starting to cut spring barley at this point in time, but it’s finished. It was easy to cut it, we had no problem with machinery, but when you don’t get the yields, it’s impossible to pay bills.
"We are beside fields where dairy people are, there is grass on them but they are just burnt.”
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