13 June 2011

The heavy deluges which fell across Europe over the weekend may not be enough to safe failing crops, experts have warned. In England, farmers fear for their crops as downpours hit the wrong areas. The rains fell on parts of the South West and Wales, where in some places a third of the average monthly rain fell in just one day, but heavy rain was largely absent from eastern areas where it is needed most.

Rain fell gently, if at all in East Anglia and Lincolnshire, where it is urgently needed to save crops, particularly wheat, which is predominantly grown in the afflicted areas. The rainfall was not enough to stave off fears of poor harvests and hosepipe bans. For that to happen, a prolonged period of rain is necessary.

The Environment Agency announced last week that Lincolnshire, Cambridgeshire, parts of Bedfordshire, Northamptonshire and western Norfolk are now officially experiencing drought. The drought is expected to cost farmers around £400m

Jenny Bashford, the National Farmers’ Union water policy adviser, said: “Farmers and growers face an anxious wait to see how the situation develops but they are resilient and well versed in dealing with the vagaries of the weather. It is always the increased cost to the farm for feed, bedding, impacts on crop growth and price that causes concern”.

German scientists offer analsis as Hamburg lashed by storms

As violent storms battered Hamburg yesterday; the town of Hessen received almost double its monthly average, over 100 litres per square metre, German scientists warned that Europe will begin to experience increasingly extreme and unseasonal weather as part of the results of climate change.

Friedrich Wilhelm Gestengarbe, director of the Potsdam-based Institute for Research into the Impact of the Climate, said, “Climate change will bring extreme meteorological events. In the future there will be two or three times as many storms and floods as before.”

Although rains fell on drought stricken parts of France over the weekend, farmers and scientists in the country said the rain did not lead to the reprieve expected, as water evaporated due to above average temperatures before it could quench thirsty crops or adequately recharge aquifers. French officials said that unless affected areas receive more rainfall soon they may have to close several nuclear power stations; 80% of France’s electricity is produced by nuclear power, which is extremely water intensive.