Drought insurance

Rain splashes too short and too late for the harvest

In Gmunden, it has rained 19 millimetres in the past two days

(Bild: dpa-Zentralbild/Patrick Pleul)

The first combine harvesters are driving onto the maize fields in Upper Austria today. There is no danger of them sinking into the mud - the rain splashes of the past few days have had no effect and future ones will also come too late for the harvest this year. Drought insurance is paying off this year. 

"The rain has done absolutely nothing. It has evaporated!" - Helmut Feitzlmayr, Head of the Crop Production Department at the Upper Austrian Chamber of Agriculture, returned to the office from his vacation after the first at least rudimentary rainfall in months and immediately had to announce that the drought was hitting farmers in Upper Austria hard. "The damage has already been done to maize, soy and beet. It can rain all it wants now," says the agricultural expert.

Grassland has also been affected by the drought, but fortunately the first cuts were very good thanks to the abundant rainfall in spring.

 Helmut Feitzlmayr, Pflanzenbau, Landwirtschaftskammer OÖ

Land is divided in two
A look at the amount of rainfall over the past two days is sobering anyway: between 4.4 liters per square meter in Gallneukirchen and 26.3 liters in Großraming. "Upper Austria is divided into two parts this year anyway. There was always some rain in the Innviertel, but the drought was most pronounced east of Vöcklabruck, in the central region and in the Mühlviertel," says Feitzlmayr.

Most farmers are insured
This is also shown by the first reliable figures: In the Innviertel region, for example, "trial harvests" of sugar beet are very satisfactory, while in the east of Upper Austria there are crop losses of up to a third. The majority of farmers in Upper Austria are now covered against some of this damage by hail insurance, and around 70 percent of farmers also have "drought index insurance".