Rastislav Pucovski held a fistful of soybeans shriveled to the size of peppercorns on his farmland in northern Serbia where the soil, dried to dust by drought, swirled in the wind.
A brief rain shower, the first in more than 40 days, offered no relief. The surrounding fields, near the town of Backi Petrovac, remained parched, the corn and soy crops withered.
“Everything is bone dry,” said Pucovski, 48, as he surveilled his land this week. “I don’t know how we will sell it.”
Photo: Reuters
Serbia, like much of the Balkans, experienced its hottest summer on record, fueled by repeated heat waves that pushed temperatures above 40oC.
The heat, coupled with drought, has strained the region’s fragile power grid, reduced key water reserves and led to crop failures. It has also raised concerns about creeping climate change, including erratic rainfall and higher temperatures that much of southern Europe is already experiencing.
Balkan wine growers say they could be rare winners, because the hot weather has boosted the sugar content in their grapes. However, corn, soy, sunflowers and some vegetables can be devastated, farmers said.
Agriculture accounts for about 6 percent of Serbia’s GDP. Preliminary data by producers suggest Serbian corn yields might drop by about 20 percent.
One problem is water access. Serbia, which has historically enjoyed plenty of rain, only irrigates 1.4 percent of its agricultural land, Statistics Office data show.
Hundreds of millions of euros would be needed for it to reach the global average of 17 percent of farmland under irrigation, Belgrade-based agricultural analyst Branislav Gulan said.
He expects farming revenue losses this year of about 500 million euros (US$554 million) because of drought.
In Bosnia, drought might halve the corn yield to 4.5 to 5 tonnes per hectare, said Dragan Mandic, an expert at the Agricultural Institute of Bosnia’s Serb Republic.
Dejan Jovanovic, a farmer from the Bijeljina region, said his crops “were devastated.”
“The corn leaves are paper-white and crumbly, the grains are tiny,” he said.
The hot weather has drastically altered the grape harvest in the Balkans this year. Producers have been forced to pick grapes earlier than anyone can remember.
Some harvests will be smaller, but the quality will be better, producers said.
In Croatia’s eastern Ilok region, the headlights of grape harvesting machines pierce the dark lanes between vines. Wine makers have started picking at night because the grapes begin fermenting too fast when picked in the heat of the day.
“It’s better to harvest at night, because it is not so hot,” said Darko Sili, a machine driver.
This year’s harvest will be nearly a month earlier than usual and could be up to 30 percent smaller due to the heat, said Vesna Stajner, a spokeswoman for the Ilocki Podrumi winery.
In Kosovo, picking began this month, also a month earlier than last year. Owners said they scrambled to find pickers so early in the season.
Dozens of workers gathered at dawn in the vineyard of the Stone Castle winery near the southern town of Rahovec.
“Our great grandparents cannot remember grapes being harvested so early,” said Nebi Duraj, grape production coordinator at Stone Castle.
There is an upside.
“It is like eating sugar,” a worker in his 60s said, as he filled his mouth with white grapes.
Duraj said the wine quality would be better than ever this year because of the sweetness, which turns to alcohol.
“When you look for wine in the coming years, ask for the 2024 vintage,” he said.
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