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On Tuesday, the German Farmers’ Association (DBV) said that this year’s grain harvest in Germany is expected to be well below the average for 2018 to 2022 and also percent below the previous year’s result.
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“In many parts of the country, the long drought in May and June caused significant damage to stocks. Agriculture is already clearly feeling the effects of climate change. The increase in extreme weather events is causing yields to decline and fluctuate,” DBV President Joachim Rukwied said.
This past June was the second sunniest month since records began. The persistent summer heat reached oppressively hot levels, Germany’s National Meteorological Service (DWD) said.
German farmers are hoping for “summer-like and hopefully often dry weather conditions” for the upcoming harvest. However, in order for corn, potatoes and sugar beets to make up for the delay in growth from the early summer, sufficient precipitation will also be needed in the coming weeks.
Weather forecasts are indicating heavy showers and thunderstorms at slightly lower temperatures for next week.
“The distribution and amount of precipitation are still very uncertain, so it is also unclear whether the drought will be dampened in the particularly affected regions,” a DWD spokesperson said on Tuesday.
Farmers in Europe’s largest economy are also troubled by new legislation. Besides the challenges of climate change for agriculture, the “across-the-board reduction targets for crop protection proposed by Brussels would lead to further yield declines,” Rukwied warned.
The European Commission aims to reduce the use and risk of chemical and hazardous pesticides in the European Union by 50 percent by 2030.
To achieve this, among other things, new rules have been adopted to simplify the approval or authorization of biological plant protection products containing microorganisms.
“The use and risk of crop protection products must be significantly reduced in order to protect the environment and biodiversity – and thus also safeguard our livelihoods for the future,” German Minister of Agriculture Cem Oezdemir said at the beginning of the year.
