The dryness caused billions in crop losses last summer, and state aid only compensated for part of the losses - and the next drought is already threatening. In some parts of Germany farmers are now urgently hoping for rain. "In some regions it is very dry, but it is crucial that the rainfall announced for the next few days also fall," said farmer president Joachim Rukwied of the "Rheinische Post".
In the areas affected by drought, the winter rains were not sufficient to replenish the stocks of land. Therefore, there is "a certain nervousness". He hopes, however, that the following peasant rule will come into play: "If May is cool and wet, it will fill the farmer's barn and barrel."
For most crops, such as grain and oilseed rape, according to the Farmers' Association, the weather will be crucial for the next six to eight weeks. In the case of corn, sugar beet and potatoes, the weather is especially important during the summer months. For a good development, rainfall would be needed again and again.
Civil Protection is undergoing a six-year drought
In recent days, the German Weather Service had warned of a possible drought period. Already on the Easter weekend, the first forest fires broke out, numerous Easter bonfires had to be canceled.
DPA
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For the farmers is now the phase of grain formation in cereals crucial, said Rukwied the "Rheinische Post". If it is too dry and too hot, often only small grains are formed, and the yield is reduced. Weather forecasts over a longer period are usually not possible.
Rukwied said that farmers have been adapting to climate change for some time. These included water-saving cultivation methods. Necessary, however, are new breeding methods to get more quickly to drought and heat tolerant plant varieties.
The FDP forestry spokesman Karlheinz Busen pointed to difficulties for many forests. "Bark beetles are currently destroying a lot of forest, and the dead and dry wood has the potential to develop uncontrollable forest fires in a summer like 2018." Federal and state governments should take warnings seriously.
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The Bonn Federal Office for Civil Protection and Disaster Assistance, meanwhile, set a scenario for what would happen in another six-year drought as in the summer of 2018. Result of the new risk analysis: In some regions of Germany the drinking water supply could collapse, power failures would be possible, the agriculture, but also the steel and chemical industry would suffer considerably.
The risk analysis points out, among other things, the consequences of the drought in 2018, which already affected shipping, as a result of which, among other things, gasoline prices rose. According to the German Weather Service, Germany experienced the longest drought since the beginning of systematic weather records almost 140 years ago.