As Halloween draws near, UK pumpkin farmers are grappling with a frightful reality: mass crop failures due to extreme weather conditions. The heavy rains and unpredictable climate have left pumpkin patches across the country in disarray, with many growers seeing drastically reduced yields – or in some cases, none at all.
One such farmer, Jonathan Hewitt, has warned consumers to adjust their expectations this Halloween. His 10-acre pumpkin patch on the Dunham Massey estate in Altrincham has suffered what he calls the worst season in his decades of farming. "In all my years, this was absolutely the worst one for pumpkins. We were hoping for 40,000, but we’ve seen about a 90 per cent failure rate,” he said. “It’s off the scale harsh.”
Hewitt explained that a combination of excessive rain and a surge in slugs compounded the already challenging growing conditions. His sentiment was echoed by fellow farmer Joe Hamer, a fifth-generation grower from Shrewsbury, who estimated that only 60-80 per cent of pick-your-own pumpkin patches across the country will be open this year.
“If you could have written a book about how you’d not want the weather to be, it would have been the weather this year,” said Hamer.
The challenges faced by pumpkin farmers come after the winter of 2023/24, which was the wettest on record for England and Wales, following the wettest 18 months since 1836. Recent data from the Energy and Climate Intelligence Unit indicates that England is on course for one of its worst harvests in recorded history.
Chad Stevens, who has run the 200-acre Horncastle Farm near Wakefield for the past decade, shared his own difficulties. Last year’s crop was devastated by heat, while this year’s has been decimated by rain. “Of around 3,000 pumpkins planted last year, we only ended up with about 200. It was scorching for weeks. It didn’t rain, so they never got established,” Stevens explained.
This year, the challenge was the opposite. “The ground was so saturated in May that we couldn’t get them in when we wanted to, so we had to plant later.” While Stevens has more pumpkins this year, they are significantly smaller, with the largest measuring just eight inches across compared to the 12-14 inches of previous harvests.
The poor harvest is also affecting those who rely on pumpkins for their business. Professional pumpkin carver Jamie Jones said the smaller crop sizes have made him “feel like crying.” “Smaller pumpkins are more time-consuming to work with and much harder to carve,” he lamented, noting that this year’s pumpkins are “roughly two-thirds to half the size” of what he typically works with.
As farmers confront both immediate challenges and the longer-term consequences of climate change, there are calls for action. Roger Harding, director of Round Our Way, an organisation that supports people impacted by extreme weather in the UK, urged policymakers to ensure the country is better prepared for the increasing frequency of such events.
“An unpredictable pumpkin harvest may seem a small thing, but it’s a big deal for many farmers and an example of how our increasingly unsettled weather is starting to have an impact on food prices and our traditions,” Harding said.
As Halloween approaches, many are left to wonder if this year’s weather woes are a harbinger of more serious challenges to come for UK agriculture.
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