Grain harvest under threat
The effects on crops of a combination of unusually warm winter temperatures and a sustained lack of rainfall is causing great concern among Catalonia's dryland cereal farmers
After such a warm and dry winter, one group that has noted the effects most are farmers, in particular dryland cereal farmers. As Santi Caudevilla, national head of cereals and herbaceous crops at the Unió de Pagesos de Catalunya, explained at the end of last month, winter cereals should have been dormant due to the cold. “We should be seeing minimum temperatures of between 3 or 4 degrees below zero and maximum temperatures no higher than 7 or 8 degrees, over a sustained period. There is not enough with a one-day drop in temperatures, it has to last from the end of November until February. However, we find ourselves in a completely strange situation, nothing like what it should be,” he says.
In these anomalous temperatures farmers find that cereals do not put down roots, as they think they are in a different season. Later, they really need those roots to capture nutrients and water: “They will not have enough roots to absorb everything they need for the new shoots,” insists Caudevilla. Dryland cereals are planted between September and November and harvested in June. “We are halfway through the season and can already see that June will be hard. Even though we do not know exactly how things will go, the harvest will not be good. The hope is temperatures drop for what remains of winter, with plenty of rain in spring. Lleida has been especially affected.
How it affects farmers will depend on the system they use. According to Caudevilla “production will fall, fertilizer has not gone down in price and the costs will be the same as always. And we can't pass this on to the price of the final product,” he says, adding: “Moreover, we have the problem of lower fuel prices meaning shipping costs will fall and we will have large quantities of grain in our ports. If prices are low but production good you can cover costs, but if on top of low prices production is poor, then it becomes difficult.”
“We need to find a different model for commercialising grain”
Farmers' union representative Santi Caudevilla, who farms in Gimenells, in Segrià, has still not given all of his harvest up for lost. “We cannot say that this is all over because there is still some time to go and you can never really predict what is going to happen with the weather, but there is great concern. In any case, I believe that this will make us seriously consider finding a different model for commercialising grain than we have had until now.”
That is why he suggests the need to find a niche, a business model in which cereals are more highly valued. “We need to find products that give us added value, outside of the sphere of large multinational grain producers. To provide what pastry chefs want, special grains for minority purposes, organic flour, and so on. We are in a global market and everyone has their own cards to play. The large multinationals are interested in volume and quantity. Meanwhile, we have to find a business niche just for ourselves.”