The European drought is taking a severe toll on farmers across north-western Europe, echoing past hardships and intensifying concerns about the future of agriculture under climate change. Hendrik Jan ten Cate, a Dutch farmer, vividly recalls the devastating 2018 drought that slashed his onion yield to a mere 10% of normal levels. In his desperation to salvage crops, he overworked himself to the point of injury, breaking his arm while trying to pump water from a canal. Today, he finds himself once again anxiously monitoring weather forecasts as his crops—potatoes, onions, cereals, carrots, and sugar beet—struggle with an alarming lack of rainfall.
This spring may be the driest in a century for traditionally wet countries like the UK, Belgium, the Netherlands, and Germany. While a brief rain shower is forecast, it offers little promise of lasting relief. Farmers like Sven Borchert in Germany, managing a 1,700-hectare farm in Saxony-Anhalt, are growing increasingly concerned. Though his land benefits from water-retentive soil, he notes they’ve received only half the expected rainfall this year. While Borchert believes his own crops may endure through May, he fears that rain in June could arrive too late to save many other farms.
The economic stakes are staggering. A report by insurance firm Howden estimates that extreme weather causes €28.3 billion in agricultural losses each year in the EU—roughly 6% of its total food production. More than half of these losses are linked to European drought, according to data prepared for the European Investment Bank (EIB). Alarmingly, only 20–30% of these losses are insured, leaving farmers financially exposed.
Gelsomina Vigliotti, vice-president of the EIB, emphasized that climate-related risks are becoming a major source of uncertainty for food production. She stressed the importance of insurance and de-risking tools to help farmers make the necessary investments to adapt. Meanwhile, the IPCC warns that ongoing fossil fuel pollution will intensify droughts across Europe, particularly in the Mediterranean, but even northern regions like the Netherlands are seeing increased volatility in weather patterns. Ten Cate notes that rainfall has become both heavier and more sporadic, with drought periods becoming longer and more extreme.
Farmers are seeking adaptive strategies to respond to the escalating crisis. These include enhancing soil organic matter, switching to more drought-resistant crops, and adopting technologies like precision agriculture and drip irrigation. After the 2018 European drought, many Dutch farmers invested in mechanical systems to extract and distribute irrigation water more efficiently.
Despite these efforts, short-term solutions remain limited. By late April, nearly one-third of Europe faced orange drought warnings, with 0.7% of the continent under critical red alert conditions, according to the European Drought Observatory. In northern Germany, organic farmer Peter Boysen reported slow grass growth and warned of feed shortages within weeks if rain fails to arrive.
Ultimately, the European drought is not just a weather event but a growing systemic threat—pressuring farmers, straining food supplies, and demanding urgent policy and technological responses.