Europe in general has been hit by a very special summer this
year. Drought has come to places where it doesn’t belong and temperatures have
been rising higher than average. Where does this come from? Is this a permanent
change? We are not sure and scientists haven’t figured it out yet. Although
some claim that it was predicted throughout the events of several storms in
2017 which changed the normal flowing of temperatures and weather. Therefore
the weather of this summer came much unexpected.
London has the warmest summer in 70 years. France is
reaching average temperatures of 38 Celsius. Italy is having a very dry time.
Norway, with all her water, is having a hard time with the drought also. Things
could quickly become critical if the weather isn’t going to change soon.
Meanwhile Eastern Europe is having trouble with thunderstorms. While things are
drying out, the Mediterranean area of Europe is experiencing floods.
All these things have had a big effect on travel and agriculture.
Farmers are having a hard time getting their crops to be ripened. Harvests are
delayed due to the lack of water. The main field of economic income in Ukraine
is agriculture, due to the very fertile soil and good climate. This year they’ve
only had 50% of their normal amount of rain. That means farmers are
experiencing a hard time to reach the expected harvest.
Wheat has ripened too fast, potatoes aren’t growing and corn
isn’t giving cobs. The expectation is to have 30% less harvest in Europe than
other years. This is if the rain will come within the next 2 weeks. If the dry
condition stays even longer it could mean that harvests could be even less. The
main issue would then be the lack of foods that are mainly produced in Europe.
There is of course a possibility to import from other agricultural countries in
the world. Yet many countries haven’t prepared for such trade agreements and
many can’t come up with the food that Europe needs for her people. The problem
is not only in the production of crops, but also in the production of meat. For
meat production the main requirement is often hay. Hay can be harvested several
times a year in some countries. Yet this year the lack of rain has made the
grass grow slower, or even stopped completely. Pig farmers are talking about
slaughtering animals earlier due to the lack of food to feed them. This set of
events will have an effect on Europe both economically, socially and
agriculturally.
Extreme drought years have happened
before. It’s not an abnormality. Things like this are common in our climate
according to historians. Weather changes slightly over time, yet extremes
happen. The main problem in 2018 comes due to the industrialized agriculture.
Farms have grown very big in production and soil has been cleaned for huge
parts of any kind of canopy that could keep the moisture under them and around
the plants. Soil which has been treated for years and have been a victim of monotony
will dry out faster than soil that has been farmed in a changing routine way.
Small farms usually have smaller field, less deep ploughing, better soil, more
trees surrounding the small fields and a better variation of crops grown on
each piece of land annually. Better variation will lead to more soil organism.
Therefore the strength of such and extreme summer wouldn’t be so damaging in
other times of agriculture history.
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