Crop losses of up to 50 per cent are now expected in parts of Germany due to drought, farmers in affected regions have claimed.
Up to half of the crops in parts of the German state of Baden-Württemberg are likely to be lost due to drought, farmers in the region have claimed, with problems to do with the prices of fuel, fertiliser, and pesticides connected to the green agenda and war in Ukraine also reportedly causing problems for those in the region.
With the losses expected to materialise in the autumn, the farming chaos may end up being another crisis facing Germany’s floundering political class as fuel shortages combined with a freefalling economy hit a public already suffering from officials’ poor handling of the COVID-19 pandemic.
According to a report by Bild, a serious lack of rainfall has led farmers to fear that the likes of maize, sugar beet, potato, and soybean crops could see losses of up to 50 per cent should rain not return soon.
“If there is no heavy rainfall in the near future, we expect considerable harvest losses of up to 50 per cent for almost all crops,” state farmer president Joachim Rukwied is reported as saying on Thursday, emphasising that crops harvested in the autumn were likely to be the worse affected.
To make matters worse, livestock farmers in the region are also now struggling, with many being forced to give animals feed meant to be kept for the winter as the amount of edible grass on the ground quite literally has dried up.
Fodder that might otherwise be imported from Russia or Ukraine is proving hard to come by as a result of the former’s invasion the latter and the West’s resulting sanctions war with Moscow.
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