Drought hits Czech agriculture hard

Despite recent raining farmers are still fighting extreme drought. Some of them say that this situation will cause the harvest to be lower by forty percent. Dry soil causes trouble to all crops including grapes and animal food.

The upper layer of the soil has gotten better after recent rains but water did not reach the deeper layers, according to experts. Situation is critical especially in Jeseníky, in parts of Pardubický, Jihomoravský and Olomoucký region, area near Třeboň and České Budějovice, in Karlovarský region and western part of Liberecký region.

In order to keep water in the soil, farmers will have to make their fields smaller and use them for different crops. This should ensure that there will not be big empty spaces on the field at any time in the season because these empty fields cannot hold water in the soil, according to minister of agriculture Miroslav Toman (Social Democratic Party - ČSSD).

Czech fields are some of the biggest ones in Europe. In the future the ministry would like to hold water in the Czech countryside by building damns which some experts criticise as controversial and pressure from the concrete lobby.