Between high yields and withered fruit

In the Jülicher Börde, one of the most fertile arable farming areas in Germany, Erich Gussen manages a 75-hectare farm. "The grain harvest in the Rhineland was good this year, but everything else is suffering from the drought," says the Vice President of the Rhineland Agricultural Association.

Everything else is mainly potatoes, sugar beets, corn, carrots and onions, the harvest of which will only begin in a few weeks. "We had a winter with enough rain," reports Gussen. This benefited the fruits, which are harvested early. “We brought in the barley in June and the wheat in July. There was still enough water in the ground and the heat wasn't that great in spring." It is different with potatoes or sugar beets, for example: "They lacked water and suffered from the heat of the past few weeks."

Basically, however, every year the weather is more favorable for some plants than for others. "The ideal weather for all plants, sun during the day, rain at night and no heat, unfortunately does not happen in reality," the 56-year-old points out. But the past few years have been special.

For Gussen it is clear that climate change is one reason for the changed situation: “In 2018 we had a real drought. 2019 and 2020 were too dry and last year there was heavy rainfall in July,” says the graduate agricultural engineer. "Everything was always very extreme." As with Bauer Gussen in the Jülicher Börde, there is a good balance for wheat for the whole of NRW: the harvested 2.15 million tons of wheat was even the highest yield since 2016, said Minister of Agriculture Silke Gorißen (CDU ) and Karl Werring, President of the North Rhine-Westphalia Chamber of Agriculture, at a joint press conference in Düsseldorf. There were also significant increases in rye, oats and triticale, a cross between rye and wheat used as animal feed.

Potatoes, corn and sugar beets, on the other hand, have been waiting for rain for a long time. On the light, sandy soil, the corn has in some cases completely dried up, said the minister from Kleve. The first stocks were therefore harvested "not ripe", as it is said, the persistent heat and drought clouded future prospects. The Ukraine war also remains a challenge for farmers. According to Gorißen, both energy costs and fertilizer prices are rising rapidly.

Erich Gussen from Jülich reacted skeptically to an attempt by the new NRW minister to improve the water supply in agriculture with subsidies for investments. In the case of grain types such as wheat and barley, unfortunately, irrigation cannot be financed economically. “Many colleagues who plant potatoes or vegetables have invested in irrigation systems in recent years.” However, the rise in energy prices has made running the pumps, which usually run on diesel, very expensive.

Gussen also doesn't believe in the advice of some ecologists to switch to old cereal plants: "Original cereals have just 20 percent of the yield of modern varieties." Farmers would be flexible anyway and would constantly adapt their crop rotation to market conditions: "Through trends such as oat milk the demand for oats has increased, peas are more in demand than before because they are used in meat substitute products. But these are all still niches.” Of course, exotic plants could also be brought to the fields: “But what’s the point if nobody wants to eat them, let alone pay for them?”