East Germany is threatened by an agricultural crisis due to drought

Because there was almost no rain, especially in March, huge arid zones are developing in East Germany, according to the Welt. Farmers are already expecting failures in certain food crops. Long-term solutions are needed and some proposals will not satisfy environmental associations.

The prospects for chickpeas are good. After sowing, these legumes thrive in Brandenburg. No wonder: chickpeas need a little rain and therefore fit the landscape. In the East German landscape. Because an extreme drought is on the horizon. A drought like the one from 2018 to 2020 is possible. The consequences for farmers and consumers of certain products would be serious.

March is the main culprit. It hardly rained at all in East Germany. April was wetter, but rainfall in the east was up to 30% below the long-term average. And May starts dry as dust. This continues what has been observed for a good decade: A huge drought zone is spreading to the east.

This is evident in the constantly updated drought monitoring system of the Helmholtz Environmental Research Center: Especially in Brandenburg and Saxony-Anhalt, as well as in parts of Saxony and Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania, the soils are so dry that at a depth of about 1.8 m Scientists have identified a “extreme drought” with a deep red color. In large areas there is so little water in the soil that the plants are under “drought stress”. This means: the odds are likely to be low.

This is dangerous for sunflowers that have been sown in the spring and now need moisture. “For spring sowing we need a whole week of heavy rainfall from now on,” says Fabian Blöchl of the Brandenburg Farmers’ Association. But if the rain does not take place – as it seems – the things will become even more difficult in the autumn for the sunflower oil, which is already in short supply.

There are also risks to energy production from maize and beets. The farmers’ association in Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania considers the situation critical. In addition, summer cereals are a concern in Saxony as well. “Agriculture needs significant rainfall in May in all parts of the Free State,” said Andreas Jahnel of the Saxony Farmers’ Association. Especially in the north and east of the state, “cultivation conditions have deteriorated significantly.”

According to the unions, it is too early to calculate crop losses and the state ministries of agriculture do not dare to make predictions at the federal level. It is safe to say that there is no risk of wheat shortages. This is also due to the fact that the penetration of soil moisture in the rest of the country, with the exception of southeastern Bavaria, is not of particular concern.

In East Germany, however, a huge permanent drought zone is developing with a high risk of forest fires, especially in Brandenburg. Politicians are afraid of groundwater. In March, Brandenburg Environment Minister Axel Vogel (Greens) announced a stricter limit on groundwater abstraction. Similar measures are planned in Saxony-Anhalt. The Berlin Senate is discussing a package of measures to reduce water demand in the capital.

In Saxony, the Ministry of the Environment and Agriculture under Wolfram Günther (Greens) assumes that, especially in the north and northeast of the free state, farmers will have to adapt permanently to drought and therefore change their farming practices.

According to a ministry spokesman, the range of measures needed ranges from “irrigation with resource savings to greater crop diversification, including deep-rooted and drought-resistant varieties of crops and the preventive management of livestock and nature conservation “. The latter means that farmers reduce crops and take care of natural landscapes with the help of state support.

In many places, farmers are already changing the intensive crop. It is true that chickpeas are rarely cultivated. However, according to their union, the farmers of Brandenburg already use the sowing method with soil cover in about 50% of their fields, where the soil is not plowed before sowing. Residues of previous plants remain in the soil and retain moisture. This also reduces CO2 emissions and saves oil because there is no need for plowing. But the need for crop protection products is greater here.

“We need glyphosate to adapt to climate change and to slow it down,” said Blöchl of the Farmers’ Union. But glyphosate will be banned from 2024 due to pressure from environmental organizations.

Also on the blacklist of some environmentalists is what CDU / CSU parliamentary’s agricultural policy spokesman Albert Stegemann (CDU) is asking for adaptation to permanent drought: Agriculture Minister Cem Özdemir (Greens) must ensure the growth of new plants .