Drought puts Upper Austrian farms at risk of crop failure

Extreme heat and months of insufficient rain have stopped plant growth in some fields and meadows, putting farmers’ harvests at risk, ORF reported. “We have never had a year like this,” pig farmer Andreas Kastner from Naarn in the Perg district told ORF Upper Austria’s Saturday interview series “Auf ein Wort.” In some cases, he said, total crop failure was possible.

The rain of recent days has not been enough to make up for the drought, Kastner said. “We urgently need slow rain spread over a week.” The heat is also harming the plants. “When we stand in the blazing sun, we don’t feel well either,” he said.

Sugar beet and maize fields have received too little rain, and many maize plants have produced no cobs. Maize is an important feed for pigs.

For many farmers, the drought is threatening their livelihoods, Kastner said. “We live from what we have in the fields or in the barn. No one can live by constantly paying extra.”

Feed prices expected to rise

The price of feed maize is already rising, Kastner said. He expects a similar development for sugar beet. He could not say how this would affect supermarket prices.

For 25 years, Kastner has led the Boden.Wasser.Schutz working group in his region, where farmers exchange information on soil-friendly cultivation methods. He said the fields around Naarn used to remain flooded for days after a thunderstorm, while the soil can now store much more water.

Kastner said farmers had seen the effects of climate change for years, regardless of whether some people still questioned it. Like many of his colleagues, he is now worried about the harvest. “We are waiting and can no longer influence anything,” he said.