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By EURACTIV's Agrifood Hub and Natasha Foote | EURACTIV.com
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While we may have all been hoping for a sunny summer break, it’s fair to say that this year we all got a lot more than we bargained for.
The droughts and soaring temperatures that ravaged Europe this summer have left their mark on EU food production, in some places even cancelling out gains in EU food production envisaged to plug the gap left by the war in Ukraine.
And, as if this wasn’t enough, the EU harvest is now facing another hurdle – soaring energy prices.
But while the impact of the energy crisis on fertilisers has been well documented, less attention has been given to another worrying knock-on effect.
Because, after struggling to produce through this summer’s drought, some farmers are now starting to worry that they won’t be able to afford to store what they’ve managed to harvest.
With the harvest season well underway for fruits such as apples and pears, farmers find themselves between a rock and a hard place – squeezed by climate change on the production side and soaring energy bills on the storage side.
In a LinkedIn post entitled ‘Chronicle of an assured death’, one Belgian fruit producer, Guillaume Mahieu, chief operating officer at the farm Vergers de Barry, explained the severity of the situation.
“Last night, I turned on the fridge again, half filled with pears. As it does every year at this time, turning on the refrigeration plant causes our power consumption to skyrocket,” he explained in a post which has since gained more than 1,500 likes.
In 2020, the megawatt-hour cost for the producer totalled around €60. But this year, Mahieu explains that his energy costs of refrigerating his harvest, a necessary step in preserving the crop, came in at an eye-popping €800, meaning a total spend of a whopping €50,000 this year.
“It is simply impossible for an SME like ours to bear such additional costs,” he stressed, calling on the state to step up and help small producers like himself.
The situation has gotten so bad, according to Mahieu, that he is faced with an impossible decision.
“Next week, we will have to decide between continuing to harvest at a loss or letting everything rot, apples, pears, and the rest,” he said.
Luc Vanoirbeek, Fruit and Vegetable Working Party Chairman for EU farmers’ association COPA-COGECA, confirmed that the situation is causing “enormous uncertainties and worries” for the producer community.
“People have to decide what to do in the coming week – the pears are picked, and they have to be stored; otherwise, they are lost,” he warned, confirming reports that energy bills are currently as much as 10 or 12 times the usual cost for producers.
But while he said he has heard farmers say (in anger) that they don’t want to continue picking, he says food spoilage is not an alternative.
Instead, he remains confident of a workaround involving shorter, smarter and more selective storage solutions, followed by a quick sell.
But the issue is not only short-term, he pointed out.
“They are now thinking what to do in the next production season, asking themselves – do I plant again?” he said, pointing out that, unlike troubles of the past, there isn’t “any light at the end of this tunnel”.
“Nobody can offer some perspective in this really depressing period,” he concluded.
It shows that to ensure the EU’s food security; there must be a spotlight on storage, spoilage, and production.
Otherwise, all our hard-earned efforts might just – literally – go to waste.
Stay tuned for the first Agrifood Podcast after the summer break, which will be published on Monday, 5 September.
Subscribe to EURACTIV’s Agrifood Brief, where you’ll find the latest roundup of news covering agriculture and food from across Europe. The Agrifood Brief is brought to you by EURACTIV’s Agrifood Team – Gerardo Fortuna (@gerardofortuna), Natasha Foote (@NatashaFoote), Julia Dahm (@dahm_julia), and Yaroslava Bukhta (@YaroslavaBukhta)
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