From Scotland to the Netherlands, northern Europe hit by exceptional drought

A drought unprecedented in decades has been affecting parts of northern Europe, stretching from Scotland to the Netherlands, for several weeks. If the phenomenon continues, it could reduce future yields of the crops farmers are currently planting.

It rained much less than normal this spring in northern France, Belgium and the United Kingdom, and the ground is dry, to the point of being dusty in places.

In the fields, spring seedlings have not yet germinated due to the exceptionally dry weather. When there is a water deficit in wheat, corn, rapeseed, or barley fields , their "growth is limited," explains Nicolas Guilpart, a lecturer in agronomy at Agro Paris Tech.

Luke Abblitt, a farmer in eastern England, is "praying for rain" as the UK experiences its driest spring in more than a century and a half.

"We're going from one extreme to the other: it rains a lot in winter, and less in spring and summer," the farmer said. He's now resigned to adapting his farming methods or "exploring new" resistant varieties.

But in the north of England, reservoir levels "are particularly, if not exceptionally, low," according to the Environment Agency.

Some farmers have started irrigating earlier, reported the main agricultural union NFU, which is calling for investment to install storage tanks directly on farms.

In the Netherlands, it has never rained so little since records began in 1906.

In Denmark , the meteorological institute warned in early May that the last three months had been exceptionally dry, with less than 63 mm of rain recorded. "Since 1874, there have only been seven times when the period from February to April has had less rainfall," it noted.

Added to this is the above-normal sunshine and temperatures for Denmark. Since May 15, the drought index has been at or above 9 on a scale of 1 to 10, the earliest it has been since the index was established in 2005, the institute noted.

In Sweden, it is still "too early to say what the impact on agriculture will be this summer," according to the Swedish Farmers' Federation. However, it advises farmers to review their water planning.

In France, the underground water tables are well filled, but plants need surface water to grow, and therefore rain.

The North has been on drought alert since Monday: between February and the beginning of May, the department received the amount of rain that usually falls in a month, and the northeast wind has accentuated the drying out of the soil.

Farmers are therefore increasingly relying on irrigation. This is the case for Sébastien De Coninck, an endive grower. The thirty-year-old's village of Beuvry-la-Forêt received eight times less rainfall between March and May than during the same period last year, which was particularly wet, he explains.

"Until five years ago, we didn't ask ourselves the question of irrigation in the North," but things are changing, because with or without it, "yields can vary by as much as twofold," the farmer points out.

Irrigation can "compensate for this lack of precipitation," acknowledges agronomist Nicolas Guilpart, but "you still need to have the resources to do it."