Latest news with #SvenBorchert
Yahoo
12 hours ago
- Climate
- Yahoo
Farmers fight for survival amid Mother Nature's recent wrath: 'Does keep you up at night'
Perhaps more than ever in modern history, it's a stressful time to be a farmer. The Guardian recently dove into the particular challenges facing European farmers in the face of prolonged drought. "Farmers across northwestern Europe are waiting with bated breath for fresh rains as typically drizzly countries such as the U.K., Belgium, the Netherlands, and Germany suffer through what may be their driest spring in a century," the Guardian reported. And said that last month was the second-warmest May on record in the region, which is now "exceptionally dry." Of course, farmers know how to deal with the occasional drought. "We farmers are resilient," one farmer in Germany, Sven Borchert, told the Guardian. "But dry spells are always stressful." And unfortunately, these droughts are anything but occasional. With global temperatures continuing to rise because of human-driven pollution, weather patterns are changing — and this has spelled bad news for farmers. Hendrik Jan ten Cate, a Dutch farmer, told the Guardian that in 2018, severe drought crippled his onion yield to 10% of what it usually is. This year, he's watching his fields anxiously and hoping for rain. "There are questions, such as how you'll pay back the bank, that does keep you up at night," he said. The key concern is the fact that these droughts are part of a pattern, not an isolated series of incidents. In fact, with changing temperatures, weather of all types is growing more severe, erratic, and frequent — from hurricanes to tornadoes, droughts to sudden floods. And when it comes to growing crops and raising livestock, severe and unpredictable weather is the last thing anyone wants. "If rain comes soon, perhaps we'll see losses of 20%-30%," German farmer Peter Boysen told the Guardian. "If no rain comes, it will of course be much worse." An analysis by the insurance firm Howden found that extreme weather costs the European Union roughly 28.3 billion euros — the equivalent of $32.7 billion— in lost crops and livestock per year. That's approximately 6% of its total food production that ends up squandered. More than half of those losses are due to drought. Do you think America does a good job of protecting its natural beauty? Definitely Only in some areas No way I'm not sure Click your choice to see results and speak your mind. And even worse for EU farmers, less than a third of these weather events are generally insured, meaning they can't recoup their financial losses in any way. The issue of disaster insurance has become increasingly complicated as insurers pull out of high-risk areas, leaving residents and businesses high and dry without a safety net in the face of an emergency. And for consumers, a more limited food supply means higher prices in grocery aisles. The farmers interviewed by the Guardian shared that they are looking into multiple ways to adapt, including looking into planting more drought-resistant crop varieties, investing in large-scale rainwater storage, and installing drip irrigation. Governments and insurers are also looking into possible reinsurance plans — insurance for insurers — in order to provide more comprehensive coverage for farmers in the event of a loss. And ultimately, reducing erratic weather means dramatically reducing human-generated carbon pollution, which falls on governments to regulate, corporations to scale back, and consumers to invest. "In the short term, though, farmers across Europe see little choice but to wait for more rain," the Guardian concluded. Join our free newsletter for easy tips to save more and waste less, and don't miss this cool list of easy ways to help yourself while helping the planet.
The Guardian
22-05-2025
- Climate
- The Guardian
‘It's a critical time': European farmers struggle through driest spring in a century
When drought descended on Hendrik Jan ten Cate's farm in 2018, slashing his onion yield to just 10% of a regular year, he slogged through days of heavy labour to draw water from canals and pump it to his crops. One day, overworked and anxious to extract as much as he could, Ten Cate fell into the canal and broke his arm. This year, with plants already growing but a severe dearth of rain to nourish young crops, the Dutch farmer is once again watching the weather forecast with worry. 'It's a critical time,' said Ten Cate, who grows potatoes, onions, cereals, carrots and sugar beet on a 100 hectare farm. 'Since April, the crops are in the ground, starting to grow, and now we need water every week.' Farmers across north-western Europe are waiting with bated breath for fresh rains as typically drizzly countries such as the UK, Belgium, the Netherlands and Germany suffer through what may be their driest spring in a century. A small respite is expected at the weekend but is unlikely to provide lasting relief. 'We farmers are resilient … but dry spells are always stressful,' said Sven Borchert, who runs a 1,700 hectare cereal and vegetable farm in Saxony-Anhalt and is the vice-president of the regional farmer's association. Borchert said his farm, which sits in the dry shadows of Germany's Harz mountains, benefited from good soil that held water well, but had seen half the rain it should have this year. He said he expected to get through the month without problems but worried rainfall in June would arrive too late for many other farms. 'There are questions, such as how you'll pay back the bank, that does keep you up at night,' he said. Extreme weather costs the EU about €28.3bn in lost crops and livestock per year, according to a analysis by insurance firm Howden, equal to about 6% of its total food production. More than half the losses stem from drought, according to an analysis of four major weather threats that was commissioned for the European Investment Bank (EIB) as part of the European Commission's push to quell anger among farmers last year. It found just 20-30% of the losses were insured. 'Climate-related risks are an increasing source of uncertainty for food production,' said Gelsomina Vigliotti, vice-president of the EIB. 'Mitigating these risks through insurance and de-risking mechanisms is essential to support the investments of European farmers.' Fossil fuel pollution is expected to worsen drought conditions in parts of Europe, with the Mediterranean rapidly drying up while other regions experience mixed changes. Despite some benefits to farms in northern Europe, the combination of heat and drought is projected to result in 'substantive agricultural production losses' for most European areas this century, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) concluded in a landmark review of climate science research in 2022. Ten Cate, who sits on the board of an agricultural association in the southern Netherlands, said farmers in the region were already witnessing greater weather extremes. 'The heavy rainfall is heavier and the dry period is longer, drier and more extreme,' he said. 'We also see the temperature getting higher … and the plants getting stressed.' Farmers say they are exploring ways to adapt to drought that range from increasing the organic content of their soil and planting more drought-resistant varieties of crops to investing in large-scale rainwater storage, precision farming and drip irrigation. Ten Cate said local farmers had responded to the 2018 drought by investing in mechanical tools to extract water from irrigation channels and distribute it over their fields. In the short term, though, farmers across Europe see little choice but to wait for more rain. Almost a third of the continent was under orange drought warnings by the end of April, according to the European Drought Observatory, with 0.7% in the critical red alert stage. Peter Boysen, an organic farmer in the northern German state of Schleswig-Holstein, said the grass on his farm had not yet dried out but was barely growing. He estimated he had only enough animal feed to last a couple more weeks. 'It's hard to gauge what economic consequences this will have,' he said. 'If rain comes soon, perhaps we'll see losses of 20-30%. If no rain comes, it will of course be much worse.'
