Climate change may increasingly impact harvests, says German minister

Berlin, Aug. 29, (dpa/GNA) – Climate change has increasing potential to impact harvests in Germany, Agriculture Minister Cem Özdemir said Monday.

“Extreme weather as a result of the climate crisis makes our harvests more and more into a lottery,” Ozdemir explained as he presented the first official data for the 2023 harvest.

Factors affecting this “new normal” included long periods of heat and droughts as well as major storms with lots of rain and hail, and businesses needed to be able to deal with this, he added.

Regarding the expected results of this summer’s crops, Özdemir said: “All in all, we can be satisfied with the harvest.”

According to preliminary data, 38 million tons of grain (excluding grain maize) are expected to come in – 4.1% less than in the previous year and 2.1% less than the multi-year average.

Özdemir said that farmers had done great things in the past few weeks and ensured that storage facilities in Germany were well-filled with harvested crops overall – although farms had to struggle with sometimes enormous weather challenges depending on the region and crop.

Özdemir said it was important to make agriculture climate-proof.

The farmers’ association had described the 2023 harvest as a “real nail-biter” last week and also reported a decline in the amount of grain in a preliminary balance sheet.

GNA

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