Bloomberg reported that a warm and dry winter has limited access to water for agricultural use, with about 60% of the Spanish countryside in drought, and conditions are worsening for farmers in Italy and Portugal.
In the rest of the EU, rains continued in March and April, so the bloc predicts an 8% increase in grain production compared to last year.
“Southern Europe is a heavyweight in fruit and vegetables, and the bad weather follows a drought that withered rice paddies and olive groves last year,” the publication said.
“Sowing in the Po River area traditionally starts in late February or early March, but right now the soil is too dry,” Massimiliano Giansanti, head of Italian farm group Confagricoltura, said in an interview in Rome. “The more we wait, though, the less we will get in terms of crops.”
According to Giansanti, this year's drought could hit the spring harvest of lucrative products such as tomatoes and fruit, an industry with annual sales of EUR 20 billion and nearly EUR 8 billion in exports. Soybean and corn production would also be threatened, increasing costs for meat and poultry producers.
“Prospects are better in other major crop growers: Nearly all wheat and barley fields in France are in good shape early in the season, although groundwater levels remain low. Much of Germany and Poland had double their normal rainfall in the past 30 days,” Bloomberg added.