agriculture
Farmers expect 40 million tons of grain
The time of the combine harvester begins again on Germany’s fields: at the start of the harvest in 2025, the prospects are mixed – not every location came through the spring months.
After a dry spring, farmers expect almost average grain harvest in Germany – but with significant regional differences. 40.1 million tons are expected and thus a little more than in the previous year with 39 million tons, as the German Farmers’ Association announced. However, the situation is crucial. “Better soils with higher water storage capability could better survive the spring dryness than weaker locations,” said President Joachim Rukwied.
Rain in many places just in time
The weather again presented the farmers with major challenges, explained Rukwied. There were average amounts of precipitation over the winter. Then, however, from February to mid -May continued dry weather to be unusually low water in the top floor, sometimes also in deeper layers. In many regions, however, the necessary rain for grain training came just at the right time. A heterogeneous picture of the stocks emerges, said Rukwied.
The entire cultivation area for cereals decreased slightly to 5.86 million hectares, almost half of the most important way in winter wheat. In the EU, a harvest of a good 280 million tons of grain, Rukwied said on a field of the Groß Machnow agricultural cooperative in Rangsdorf in Brandenburg. That would be ten percent more than the small harvest in 2024 and thus a return to a normal situation.
Prices for farmers at low point
However, the cereal prices have currently reached a low point, explained the peasant president. Together with further high costs for fertilizers, energy and pesticides, this means that the calculations would be “very scarce”. At rapeseed, the farmers’ association expects a harvest at around the previous year, which would be below the average of the past five years.
In potatoes, sugar beet and corn that are harvested in autumn, the weather is still important for the next few months. This also applies to further grass cuts on the meadows as the basis for animal feed.
Zikade a “real threat”
Farmers are worried, especially in potatoes, sugar beet, onions, beetroot and red cabbage, the now wider reeds of reed-glass win culinary cicade. “The zikade is a real threat to our agriculture and the security of supply with food,” said Rukwied. According to the association, the pathogen she has transferred leads to significant loss of yield and quality until the total failure.
dpa
Source: Stern
