In recent weeks, northern Europe has been grappling with its most severe drought in decades, triggering deep concern among farmers from Scotland to the Netherlands who fear prolonged dryness could severely impact this season’s harvests.
Crops such as wheat, corn, rapeseed, and barley are particularly vulnerable, with water shortages threatening to hinder their growth, according to Nicolas Guilpart, an agronomy lecturer at the AgroParisTech research institute.
Several countries, including France, Belgium, the UK, and Germany, have recorded significantly below-average rainfall this spring, leaving fields parched and soil conditions increasingly hostile to healthy crop development.
The atypically dry conditions have already disrupted the natural cycle of many crops, delaying germination and early growth. In eastern England, farmer Luke Abblitt summed up the mood across the region: “We’re praying for the rain,” he said, as the UK endures its driest spring in more than a hundred years.
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The weather is going from “one extreme to the other,” he told AFP.
“We’re having a lot of rain in the wintertime, not so much rain in the spring or summer time,” he said. “We need to adapt our cultivation methods, look at different varieties, different cropping possibly to combat these adverse weather conditions.”
Britain’s reservoirs have dropped to “exceptionally low” levels, according to the Environment Agency, underscoring the mounting strain across the agricultural landscape as the drought deepens.
The National Farmers’ Union reports that some farmers have been forced to begin irrigation much earlier than usual—a move that reflects growing anxiety over crop survival. The union is now urging significant investment in water infrastructure to enhance storage and collection capabilities in the face of increasingly erratic weather patterns.
Across the Channel, the situation is equally dire. The Netherlands is experiencing its driest conditions since record-keeping began in 1906, while neighbouring Belgium hasn’t seen a spring this arid in over 130 years. “We’ve never witnessed anything like this in early spring,” said Pascal Mormal of Belgium’s Royal Meteorological Institute (IRM), capturing the shock felt across the region.
In Germany, the outlook is no better. Environment Minister Steffi Lemke issued a stark warning in April, citing an elevated risk of wildfires and diminished harvests due to what she described as an “alarming” rainfall deficit. Between February 1 and April 13, Germany recorded just 40 litres of rainfall per square metre—the lowest figure since records began in 1931, according to the German Weather Service (DWD).