Agronomist calls for stronger farming resilience as drought worsens

Austria must shift from responding to agricultural crises to investing in resilience and prevention as extreme weather becomes more frequent, agronomist Hermine Mitter told ORF in its Saturday interview. The severe summer caused more than €1 billion in damage to agriculture nationwide.

The Austrian government has agreed on €240 million in drought aid after a prolonged dispute. Mitter, an agricultural economist at the University of Graz, said such decisions would probably become less frequent in the future.

Changing view of extreme weather

Mitter said people would need to revise how they define and assess extreme weather events. Events that occurred once every 10 years during the period from 1961 to 1990 occurred 2.5 times during the period from 1991 to 2020, she said.

Such events are expected to become even more frequent as global temperatures rise. At a global warming level of 3 degrees Celsius, which the world is currently moving towards, their frequency would reach 4.8 times the earlier level, Mitter said.

She called for a shift away from pure crisis management towards greater resilience and sustainability in agricultural systems. More financial resources should be invested in preparation and prevention, she said.