Stunning Aljazeera reporting above from the Netherlands.
I knew Europe was having a rough summer, but even the Dutch are shocked at the impact drought conditions are having on the critical dike infrastructure.
And I’m thinking, just wait, next summer is the real El Niño year…
Successive intense heatwaves and an increasingly severe, continent-wide drought have left many of Europe’s farmers in an “unprecedented” crisis, with vegetable and grain growers in particular warning of “catastrophic” harvests.
French vegetable production is down by “a very significant extent” compared with previous years, French growers have said, with shortfalls put at 25% for courgettes, 35% for lettuces, 40% for peas, 60% for broccoli and 50% to 100% for artichokes.
“The vegetable sector is facing a historic crisis,” said Prince de Bretagne, which groups together more than 1,300 vegetable producers in Brittany, calling for “urgent action” to address a “dramatic” fall in yields and in the quality of many crops.
Accelerated, human-caused global heating and a supersized El Niño have scorched fields across Europe this summer, with plant development prevented by temperatures routinely exceeding 30C and often 35C, almost no rainfall, and hot winds.
“Usually one region fares better, which helps compensate,” Eric Legras, of the 4,400-member French canned and frozen vegetable producers’ association, told Le Monde. “This year, all our main production areas have been hit, and at the same time.”
Cereal production has been equally hard hit, with the agriculture ministry estimating the maize harvest in France – Europe’s largest grains producer – will be down by 35% on 2025 levels at about 9m tonnes, a quantity last seen in 1980.
Part of the fall is due to farmers’ switching to other crops, such as sunflowers, the ministry said, but it also reflects the impact of this summer’s vicious heatwaves, which have battered the crucial crop during critical stages of its growth cycle.
That is likely to cause big problems for livestock farmers. With dairy cows typically starting to suffer from heat stress above 25C, many producers have already reported milk yields down by 10%-15%. Most are now also concerned about winter feed.
Clean Energy Wire (email):
Large forest fires have led to evacuations and disaster response measures in western Germany, adding to the environmental and economic toll of repeated heatwaves, drought and record temperatures in the summer of 2026. A fire near the town of Hürtgenwald in North Rhine-Westphalia has caused “terrifying” damages, said the state’s environment minister, Oliver Krischer from the Green Party, in an article by newspaper Die Zeit.
The region has seen smaller fires in the past, but Krischer said the scale of this latest fire showed that climate change is now fully affecting the country. He said ambitious climate action remained indispensable, but added that citizens would also have to prepare to live with more extreme weather conditions. “We will have to deal with it,” Krischer said. About 2,000 residents evacuated from Hürtgenwald were able to return to their homes over the weekend, Die Zeit reported in a separate article.