Mention the word Britain, and certain images spring to my mind. I see a nation of rolling hills carpeted with lush, green grass rooted in rich, loamy soils. Bountiful croplands are surrounded by dense, spectacular forests. Rushing rivers and clear ponds provide water for plump sheep and meaty cows. For generations, this was Britain: a picture of agricultural prosperity.

Today, this picture is changing.

Britain’s soil is parched and its vegetation desiccated. The nation, along with much of Europe, is presently sizzling under extreme temperatures and dry weather. As this abnormal weather bears down, the nation’s environment and agriculture are being impacted the most. Britain’s agricultural industry, already beat-up and ailing from other factors, is now struggling to remain efficient and competitive.

Once a model of efficiency to the rest of the world, British agriculture suffered its first blow when the nation joined the European Common Market, now called the European Union, and was negatively impacted by the two-edged sword of EC regulation. Huge subsidies granted to far less efficient farmers on the Continent and the imposition of quotas on British productivity resulted in poor prices for superior British products and eventually led to British farmers being paid to not grow produce. Life on the land has been a struggle for the British farmer ever since, with farm bankruptcies contributing to a disproportionate number of suicides. More recently, the mad cow scare decimated the breeding stock of much of the nation’s cattle. Now, extremes of weather are rubbing salt into the wounds of the British agricultural industry.

Summer in Britain this year has been a sizzler. As early as May, with Britain’s Environment Agency warning that the nation may be facing its worst drought in 100 years, the government started imposing water restrictions. By the middle of summer millions of people were under “drought orders,” which banned all non-essential use of water. Swimming pools sat empty; cars could not be washed; public parks, golf courses, cricket pitches and other sporting grounds withered away.

This is a nation with a reputation for unfailing wetness!

In May, according to the Times, rainfall had “been below average for the past six months while London and much of southern England have experienced the driest 18 months in the past 74 years“ (May 16; emphasis mine throughout). As summer wears on, rivers, streams and ponds in England and Wales are drying up, and trees are dropping their leaves prematurely. The nation has become a tinderbox of desiccated vegetation and dry soil. In the month of July, there were more than 600 fires in Liverpool alone. Thousands of other blazes have fried different parts of the nation.

As drought conditions spread north, the Environment Agency has been forced to ban some farmers from irrigating their crops. Certain rivers, a traditional source of irrigation, are down 50 percent of their long-term average level. Even the water level of the mighty Thames has sunk to a mere 75 percent of its average height.

In many rivers and ponds across the nation, low levels and stagnant water are causing outbreaks of toxic algal blooms, which are resulting in the death of thousands of fish. In other cases ducks are catching botulism and some species of wildlife are being driven to extinction. This crisis now stretches across the nation. According to Britain’s Environment Agency, “two dry winters and this summer of record temperatures had reduced rivers to trickles and posed a danger to wildlife at more than 100 sites across England and Wales” (Times Online, August 9).

The Environment Agency pointed out that the entire nation is suffering from persistent dry weather. “At first, we couldn’t see the impact of the drought around us as the real problems were low groundwater levels in the Southeast,” said Dr. David King, director of water management at the agency. “But the continued lack of rainfall, low water levels and recent high temperatures have put pressure on the environment right across England and Wales” (ibid.). In July, groundwater levels in some areas were as low as they had been in the unprecedented drought of 1976, and in some cases, lower.

As Britain’s drought wears on, it is destroying crops. “The heat wave which delivered the hottest July on record has caused a disastrous slump in vegetable crops which is expected to send prices soaring, as they did when the 1976 drought hit” (Independent,August 3). Grain crops including wheat, winter barley and oats are returning significantly lower yields, while the decimation of fruit and vegetable crops is expected to send prices spiraling to 30-year highs.

The Independent reported that by the time summer has taken its full toll on this year’s wheat harvests, “[t]he price of a loaf [of bread] is expected to have risen by as much as 4 pence [about 8 U.S. cents]” (August 14). Earlier this month, analysts predicted that yields of many staple vegetable crops would be down as much as 40 percent. The decimation has sparked a country-wide rise in fruit and vegetable prices. In early August, wholesale potato prices, for example, had increased 36 percent over the same time last year.

Similar conditions are resulting in lower yields and resultant price hikes in various foods across Europe. With large volumes of fruit and vegetables scarce on the Continent, Britain will not be able to simply import more to make up for the loss of crops that it has experienced. The Processed Vegetable Growers’ Association has already alerted British consumers to the possibility of food shortages in the near future.

Carpeted with lush, green grass, dense forests and rich, loamy soils, Britain was once a picture of environmental and agricultural prosperity. But today, drought conditions are pushing this nation to the verge of environmental and agricultural destruction. It is evident that this once-rich and bountiful nation is now being cursed. But why?

To learn why Britain was blessed with such environmental and agricultural bounty, as well as why this wealth and abundance is now being taken away, please read Herbert W. Armstrong’s enlightening and engaging book The United States and Britain in Prophecy.