Feature Insights
Flooding damage to agriculture is becoming clear
It has been a week since Poland, Czechia, Romania, and Austria were hit by extreme rainfall. Later, Northern Italy was also affected, where significant damage occurred. The extent of the damage to agriculture in Central Europe is becoming increasingly clear, amounting to billions of euros.
Summer storm Boris, which locally caused up to 700 millimeters of rainfall, wreaked havoc in Central Europe. The death toll has now reached 21 people. In Poland, 68,000 hectares of farmland have been flooded, as reported by the Ministry of Agriculture. Of that, 25,000 hectares were planted with crops. Farms in low-lying areas were sometimes flooded, resulting in damage to stored crops, but no animals perished.
Compensation in Poland
Corn and sugar beets are the two crops most affected by the rainfall. Also affected are potatoes, soybeans, and newly sown rapeseed. The Polish Ministry of Agriculture will compensate growers for their losses, as announced by Deputy Minister Czesław Siekierski on Sunday, September 22.
In Poland, about 175 millimeters of rainfall was spread over four days. On the other side of the Giant Mountains, in Czechia, the amount was even higher. Some of the water that fell in the mountains flowed into Poland, causing the most significant damage. In Czechia, corn and rapeseed have also been largely destroyed by the water. The Czech Potato Growers Association CBS fears for the remaining crops, which may be considered lost. A silver lining is that the potatoes in the floodplains along the Elbe River had already been harvested three-quarters when it started raining. In the highlands, 75% still needed to be harvested. The organization does not yet have an indication of the damage.
Reservoir
In the far southwest of Poland, the Racibórz Dolny reservoir has spared farmers and residents a lot of misery. In 1997, severe floods also occurred, causing the city of Wroclaw to be submerged. To prevent this, the reservoir was built in 2020 to capture water flowing from the Oder River. The reservoir, essentially a polder that is flooded during high water, can store 185 to 320 million cubic meters of water and extract 1,300 cubic meters per second from the Oder.
Dutch farmer Hessel Appel farms south of Wroclaw. He could not benefit from the reservoir. "175 millimeters fell in four days. The fields could handle that, but when the water from the mountains flowed here through streams, it was a disaster," he says. "30 kilometers away, it rained 300 millimeters, which was devastating. There were places with 2.5 meters of water on the land." Appel estimates that 50 hectares of rapeseed and 50 hectares of corn are lost on low-lying fields. "The corn was initially still standing, but now the plants are falling over."
Erosion a problem
On the higher fields, the farmer does not have waterlogging issues. Here, erosion is a problem. "Gullies up to 30 centimeters deep and 100 centimeters wide have washed out in the land." The rapeseed, sown at the end of August, was about five centimeters high. "It is now turning yellow and dying, so it will be replanted with winter grain or corn next spring," he explains. To sow, he still needs to be patient as it is currently too wet. "Rain is forecasted again this week, but fortunately not as much as last week."
Despite the significant damage, the originally Zeeland farmer considers himself lucky compared to his colleagues. "My two farms are relatively high. Colleagues in valleys have seen their barns and storage silos flooded, making the grain and rapeseed worthless. Also, the villages, mostly located at the foot of the hills, have been heavily affected because the rivers have overflowed their banks."
Supply halted
The corn harvest has just begun. Waterlogging is causing problems, also felt in the market in Poland. In Czechia, the processing of starch potatoes has come to a standstill because farmers cannot harvest and deliver the product. Sugar factories in Southern Poland, including Südzucker and Pfeifer & Langen, have been able to continue operating, but delivery schedules have been rearranged. Not all fields could be harvested.
