Spain facing food shortages as severe drought leads to crop failure
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Loading... - Daniel Perez
- 27 Apr 2023
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A plant is photographed on the cracked earth after the water level has dropped in the Sau reservoir, about 100 km (62 miles) north of Barcelona, Spain, Tuesday, April 18, 2023 - Copyright Emilio Morenatti/Copyright 2023 The AP. All rights reserved.
Southern Europe’s farmers are facing a crop crisis. Months of drought has interruped this year’s harvests and some Spanish ecologists are warning the country may soon be unable to sustain cereal crops such as wheat and barley.
"Irreversible damage has been done to more than 3.5 million hectares of crops," the main Spanish farmers' association COAG warns, sounding the alarm on a trend it says is being observed throughout much of the country.
What are the effects of drought on farming?
"If rainfall does not improve within a few days, then rainfed crop production, especially winter cereals, will be significantly reduced,” says Sergio Vicente-Serrano, a researcher at the Pyrenean Institute of Ecology of Zaragoza.
“If it continues like this, then, logically, the harvest will decrease, and therefore prices will rise. It should not be forgotten that drought is a phenomenon characteristic of the Mediterranean climate, that is not something new, connected with the process of global warming, and not a process that we have experienced only in the last few decades.
But the problem is that in recent years we have also suffered from a lack of precipitation against the backdrop of a noticeable increase in temperature." The Spanish government’s National Drought Committee is meeting to discuss the problem later this week. Read More…
