Extreme weather compromises global crop production

Farmers across northern and central Europe faced crop failure and bankruptcy this year, as a result of one of the most intense regional droughts in recent memory.

Prolonged heatwaves across Europe during the Northern Hemisphere winter devastated crops, leaving some countries facing their worst harvests since the end of the Second World War. France had been severely hit, and was expected to lose more than 20% of its grain harvests, while Italy was expected to lose 13% of its wheat, and Britain 12%. Across the EU, total wheat production was expected to decline about 10 million tons, or 10%.

In Ukraine, once renowned as the breadbasket of the former Soviet Union, the wheat crop declined 75% to five million tons year-onyear. According to the UN’s Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO), this decline was being compared with that of 1945.

Serious flash flooding then followed in parts of Europe, due to the soil’s capacity to absorb water being severely reduced.

Lester Brown, head of research organisation, Worldwatch, predicted that prices would skyrocket towards the end of the year: “The heatwave came at a time when world food supplies were already at their most precarious. The amount of grain produced for each person on earth is now less than at any other time in more than three decades.”

Reacting to the crisis, the European Commission announced that payments to farmers would be accelerated and that they would be allowed to use fallow land not normally used for production to feed their livestock. Germany’s farming association also called for €1 billion (about R15,7 billion) in financial assistance from federal and state authorities.

Elsewhere, Australia suffered a similar devastating drought, with a A$500 million (R5 billion) aid package announced for struggling farmers. India was also forced to release 50% of its food stocks this year, following intense heat followed by floods.