The worst harvest and rising prices are expected

Southern Europe is facing a summer of severe drought, and some regions are already facing water shortages as farmers expect their worst yields in decades.

While the region is becoming hotter and drier due to climate change, years of consecutive droughts have depleted groundwater reserves. The soil became dry in Spain, the south of France and Italy. Low levels of rivers and reservoirs also threaten this year's summer production of hydroelectric power plants.

As temperatures rise as summer approaches, scientists are warning that Europe is in for another brutal summer, after last year was the hottest on record, causing a drought that scientists said was the worst in 500 years.

This year, the situation is the most serious in Spain, Reuters points out.

"The drought situation will worsen this summer," said Jorge Olsina, a professor of geographic analysis at the University of Alicante in Spain.

There is little chance that rain will solve the problem of underground drought at this moment. "At this point in the year, the only thing we can have are temporary local storms, which will not solve the lack of precipitation," said Olsina.

Asking for urgent EU help, the Spanish Minister of Agriculture, Luis Planas, warned that "the situation that will arise from this drought is of such proportions that the consequences cannot be suppressed only from national funds", according to a letter sent to the European Commission on April 24, in which Reuters had an insight.

Southern Europe is not the only one to be hit by serious water shortages this year. The Horn of Africa is going through its worst drought in decades, and Argentina's record drought has already affected soybean and corn crops.

More frequent and severe droughts in the Mediterranean region - where the average temperature is now 1,5 degrees Celsius higher than 150 years ago - is in line with how scientists predict climate change will affect the region.

"In terms of climate change indicators, it is very much in line with what we expected," said Haley Fowler, professor of climate change impacts at Newcastle University.

Despite the fact that this situation has been predicted for a long time, preparations are lacking. Many of the region's farmers have yet to adapt to water-saving methods such as precision watering or switching to more drought-resistant crops, such as sunflowers.

"Governments are late. Companies are late," said Robert Vautard, climatologist and director of the Pierre-Simon Laplace Institute in France. "Some companies don't even think about changing their consumption model, they just try to find some miracle technology that would bring water".

France is emerging from its driest winter since 1959, and a drought alert has been activated in four prefectures, restricting water supplies to priority areas only - not including agriculture.

Portugal is also expecting an early drought. About 90 percent of the land is suffering from drought, and a severe crisis affects one fifth of the country - which is almost five times more than the year before.

In Spain, where in April there is twice less rain than average, thousands of people rely on cisterns for drinking water, while in some regions, including Catalonia, restrictions on water supply have been introduced.

Some farmers have already reported crop losses of up to 80 percent, and cereals are among the most affected, reports Reuters.

"This is the heaviest harvest loss in recent decades," said Pekka Pesonen, who heads the European farmers' group Kopa-Kogeka, commenting on the situation in Spain. "It is worse than last year".

Spain is responsible for half of the EU's olive production and one third of the fruit, the EC announced.

With reservoirs at an average of 50 percent capacity, the country last week set aside more than 2 billion euros for emergency response. It is still waiting for the Commission's response to its request that the crisis fund of 450 million euros be allocated from the bloc's budget for agricultural subsidies.

The EC announced that they are closely monitoring the situation.

"Severe droughts in Southern Europe are particularly worrisome, not only for farmers, but also because it can cause a further increase in already high prices if production in the EU is significantly lower," said Commission spokeswoman Miriam García Ferrer.

A similar situation is expected in Italy, where around 80 percent of water supplies go to agriculture. However, due to this year's thin snow cover and low soil moisture, Italian farmers are planning to reduce crops. The territory planned for summer crops this year is six percent smaller than usual, national data showed.

After two years of shortages, Northern Italy has a 70 percent deficit in snow water reserves and a 40 percent deficit in soil moisture, Luca Broca, director of research at the Italian National Research Council, told Reuters.

Such a large shortage paves the way for a repeat of the situation from last summer, when Italy was hit by the worst drought in the last 70 years.

"The year 2022 was truly extraordinary. Also, this year seems to be really extraordinary and difficult," said Broka.