Half of the problem if it is only about pumpkins, although they enter our export. This year, both the pumpkin and the harvest are low. This year's drought damaged many crops. This affects both the farmers and all of us. How will we pay for the climate crisis?
Beautiful, lush and lush – at least at first glance, because a short conversation with the farmers is enough, they must be lush and bigger.
– The pumpkins are much smaller than they should be, there are very few of them in the factory, – says Joanna Katsiupa from the state farm “Dinove Pole”. This voice is from the West Pomeranian Voivodeship.
This, in turn, is the voice of Mazovia: – We see that the harvest is reduced by 20, 30, sometimes up to 50 percent. This 20 percent is what any normal farm can withstand, – says Pawel Miziak, owner of Euro-Paprika company and member of the Association of Paprika Producers of the Republic of Poland. Many farms can no longer withstand a 50% reduction.
Poland is the pumpkin powerhouse of Europe
All this is a result of this year's drought, which has covered almost the entire country. This season, at the worst moment, it affected 13 voivodeships, as well as our export goods, because it is known that Poland is the powerhouse of pumpkins in all of Europe.
– At first, the bushes did not want to grow, and later the pumpkin even got sunburned, because the bush did not grow enough to cover its fruit, – says Edgar Latalla from the state farm “Zhedinie”.
The orange pumpkin is not only a symbol of Halloween. During the last 10 years, pumpkin production has increased 8 times. About 400,000 tons of it are grown every year. In this context, any bad news seems even worse.
Earlier drought, now heavy rain. Climatologists: such phenomena are becoming more and more frequent Marta Kolbus/Fakti po Poludniu TVN24
– When there is no water, we die and our plants die – says Paweł Myziak. Data from the Polish Institute of Economics show that we lose 6.5 billion PLN of harvest every year as a result of drought in Poland.
If irrigation is improved, it is possible to increase the grain yield by 20% and the yield of tubers – potatoes and celery by 30%. This is one of the main problems of Polish farmers today.
The drought caused great damage in the whole country
This year, about 170,000 producers of agricultural products applied to the Ministry of Agriculture for the assessment of agricultural damages caused by drought.
– Very big loss, we collected much less pumpkin than expected – says Joanna Kaciupa. All these numbers show how much the climate crisis is already costing us. And scientists add that it will cost more.
– Extreme weather events such as hailstorms, droughts interrupted by floods or sudden waves of frost. All this makes growing food more difficult and predicts lower yields – says Dr. Sebastian Shclarek from the European Regional Center of Ecohydrology of the Polish Academy of Sciences, author of the blog “Świat Młodych”.
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Therefore, to ensure predictable yields, more and more farmers are deciding to invest in a weather-independent irrigation system.
– Agriculture is moving towards controlled irrigation, i.e. under-cover crops, protected crops, irrigated crops – says Pavel Miziak. But this can be unattainable for many farmers.
“It costs us a lot, and we are not a big farm,” says Joanna Katsiupa.
Main photo source: TVN24
