The drought in June has meant that this year’s grain harvest is expected to be much lower compared to a normal year, according to forecasts from Lantmännen. But after a significantly wetter month of July, many farmers are now daring to hope again.
– You can take the weather you get. We are happy that we got rain, says dairy farmer Pehr Hansson.
At the beginning of the summer, the ministers and meteorologists warned that this year’s summer would be very dry and that it would be bad for both forests and agriculture. But after a few weeks of rain and debris, many Swedish farmers can now breathe a sigh of relief. One of them is Pehr Hansson, who runs the dairy farm Svesgård in Kungsbacka.
– You can take the weather you get. We are glad we got rain. It is very important for our grass harvest, says Pehr Hansson.
Although the month of July offered lots of wet showers, the dry June weather left its mark. The fodder harvest that Pehr would now have for his 260 dairy cows was significantly less than he had thought.
On the farm he has several silos and usually the largest of them would have been filled with feed. But not now.
– Normally, we would have had our second harvest here in the silo. By then we had filled the entire silo well out onto the asphalt and with plenty of rye on top. Now there was a small mess in the second silo, so this was barely a third of the harvest.
The harvest is expected to decrease by 20 percent
While some farmers cheered for the July weather, there are those who had hoped for more wet weather. On Gotland, Öland and in eastern Småland it is still dry and difficult.
– As usual, the rain has been distributed unevenly across the country. In western Sweden, there was almost too much of the good stuff, where over 200 millimeters of rain fell. But in other parts of Sweden, there are farmers who are still struggling, says Markus Hoffman, sustainability expert at the National Federation of Farmers.
It is likely that the drought in June will also be noticed in this year’s harvest forecast. According to Lantmännen, for example, the grain harvest this year is expected to be around 20 percent lower compared to last year. But how exactly it will turn out remains to be seen.
– We have to wait until September and October before we can close the accounts and see how this season turned out, says Markus Hoffman.
For Pehr Hansson, however, rain is enough now.
– Now the weather should be fine so that we can get started and harvest the next crop. It needs to dry up first so that it is not too wet, says Pehr.