It has been a week since Poland, the Czech Republic, Romania and Austria were hit by extreme precipitation. Northern Italy followed later, where there was also major damage. It is now becoming increasingly clear how much damage has been done to agriculture in Central Europe. It runs into billions of euros.
Summer storm Boris, which brought up to 700 millimeters of precipitation in regions, has caused enormous damage in Central Europe. The death toll has now reached 21 people. In Poland, 68.000 hectares of agricultural land have been flooded, according to the Ministry of Agriculture there. Of that, 25.000 hectares are cultivated with crops. In low-lying areas, farms have sometimes been flooded. This has caused damage to stored crops, but no animals have died.
Compensation in Poland
Grain corn and sugar beets are the two crops that were hit hardest by the precipitation. Potatoes, soybeans and the newly sown rapeseed were also affected. The Polish Ministry of Agriculture will compensate growers for the loss, Deputy Minister Czesław Siekierski announced on Sunday, September 22.
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In Poland, some 175 millimeters of precipitation fell over four days. On the other side of the Giant Mountains, in the Czech Republic, it was much more. Some of the water that fell in the mountains flowed to Poland and that caused the greatest damage. In the Czech Republic, it also concerns corn and rapeseed, which were largely destroyed by the water. The Czech potato growers' organization CBS fears for the remaining crops, which can be considered lost. A stroke of luck is that the potatoes in the floodplains around the river Elbe had already been harvested for three quarters when it started to rain. In the highlands, 75% still had to be harvested. The organization does not yet have an indication of the damage.
Reservoir
In the far southwest of Poland, the Racibórz Dolny Reservoir has saved farmers and residents a lot of misery. In 1997, severe flooding also occurred, which submerged the city of Wroclaw. To prevent this, the reservoir was built in 2020 to capture water flowing through the Oder River. The reservoir, which is actually a polder that is flooded at high tide, can store 185 to 320 million cubic meters of water and extract 1.300 cubic meters per second from the Oder.
Dutch arable farmer Hessel Appel farms south of Wroclaw. He was unable to benefit from the reservoir. "175 millimetres fell in four days. The plots could handle that, but when the water from the mountains flowed here via rivers, it was a disaster," he says. "30 kilometres away, it rained 300 millimetres and that was disastrous. In places, there was 2,5 metres of water on the land." Appel estimates that 50 hectares of rapeseed and 50 hectares of grain maize were lost on low-lying plots. "The maize was initially still standing, but now the plants are falling over."
Erosion a problem
On the higher plots, the arable farmer does not have any waterlogging. Here, erosion is the main problem. "Gutters of up to 30 centimetres deep and 100 centimetres wide have been washed into the land." The rapeseed, which was sown at the end of August, was now about five centimetres high. "It is now turning yellow and dying, so we will have to sow winter grain or maize next spring," he explains. He will have to be patient for a while before he can sow, as it is now far too wet. "This week, rain is expected again, but fortunately not as much as last week."
Despite the considerable damage, the farmer, originally from Zeeland, considers himself lucky compared to his colleagues. "My two farms are relatively high up. Colleagues who are in a valley have seen their barns and storage silos flooded, rendering the grain and rapeseed worthless. The villages, which are often located at the foot of the hills, have also been hit hard because the rivers have burst their banks."
Supply is at a standstill
The harvest of grain maize has just started. Due to the flooding, this causes problems, which is also noticeable on the market in Poland. In the Czech Republic, the processing of starch potatoes has been forced to stop because farmers cannot harvest and deliver the product. The sugar factories in southern Poland, including Südzucker and Pfeifer & Langen, have been able to continue operating, but delivery schedules have been changed. Not all plots could be harvested either.