Drought in Europe Hits Wheat Crop -

Crops: drying a slow death

Yesterday, on a train from London to the Midlands, I stared out of the window on to a sorry scene of stunted crops and dusty land. This is England in May, where spring ought to look at its freshest. Instead, as any gardener knows, plants that have not been irrigated have given up on life. Cereal crops have decided that they had better reproduce quickly, as best they can under the circumstances, in case they die. They’ve produced small seeds that are too close together and won’t be sheltered from the sun by the usual leaf.

In Hertfordshire, farmer Robert Law expects the yield from wheat sown over winter to be down by 40 per cent. Cereals sown this spring have been practically wiped out. “In an average year, we would have 130ml of rainfall,” he sighs. “This year, we’ve had 7ml.” (GG: I think he probably means mm, not ml...) There isn’t the water to irrigate cereal crops, and it wouldn’t be cost-efficient for him if there were, given the prices the crops fetch.

Clive Newington runs a mixed farm in Sussex, and he speaks to me from his tractor cab. “The drought is starting to bite,” he says. “Wheat is coming into ear about 10 days too early, on straw that is nine inches too short. The malting barley is looking so stressed – there has been no growth.”

Mr Newington, though, is relatively fortunate. On his mixed farm, he has the option of diverting some grain into animal feed. On a pure dairy or beef unit, this isn’t possible. Farmers rely on the sappy spring grass – richer in nutrients than grass in the summer – to build up their animals after winter. They will want to conserve some of it as hay or silage to use when the cattle are back in their barns. This year, the grass hasn’t performed. Meadows that should be knee-high at this season barely tickle your ankles. Cattle are being moved on to fields that had been earmarked for silage. And the weather has made it difficult to spread fertiliser, which needs rain to take it into the ground. The cost of fertiliser, being energy-intensive to make, follows the oil price, so is now at a high.