How can farmers manage excessive rainfall? ‘In parts of West Flanders it might be better not to plant potatoes anymore’

Philip Fleurbaey from Hoeve Zuid-Bellegoed in Ypres normally has twenty hectares of winter wheat. He was only able to sow five of them, and then only before frost in January. Not between October and December, when that was actually the intention. It was too wet, the machines could no longer even reach the flooded fields. Where this was attempted, they destroyed the soil. “The other 15 hectares are still fallow. I am now looking for alternatives for this. Grass maybe, or grain corn.”

It is an exercise that more farmers need to make today. Because David Dehenauw, head of the weather service of the KMI and weatherman for VTM and RTL, is certain. Yes, the weather in recent months has been exceptional. “Over the past seven months, and I count from the beginning of October to the end of April, more rain has fallen every month, normally in that month. It has been since December 1994 to June 1995 since this happened again.” The data from the Flemish Environment Agency also confirm this: in March, after the end of winter, the groundwater was at its highest level in twenty years.

But, Dehenauw also says, this will still happen. He cannot say when, or whether it will be next year or the year after, but it is certain that in the future we will be confronted more often with long periods of exceptional rainfall and long periods of extreme drought. Climate change is responsible for this, but you already knew that.

To adjust

The question is how farmers should deal with this. Can they adapt to that? “Of course,” says agricultural economist Tessa Avermaete (KU Leuven). “There will be areas, such as certain parts of the Westhoek for example, where it might be better not to plant potatoes in the future. You can also see that today: the situation is downright dramatic due to the extremely wet months, but it is also regionally specific. In Limburg, for example, it is better than in West Flanders due to a different surface and less rainfall.”

It is not just the weather that will force farmers to change tack, Avermaete thinks. “Insurers will also think twice about providing a guarantee for farmers in sensitive areas – compare it to putting a house in a flood area. Farmers will therefore have to diversify their crops more, in order to spread the risks and focus even more on technological innovation. Machines that break their ground less, experiment with different tire pressures, ways to promote soil fertility, you name it.”

Innovations that are currently being worked on very strongly in the agricultural sector, says Avermaete, and from which large companies will certainly benefit. It’s the little ones she fears more. “I’m thinking of picking farms, for example, where you pay in advance just to bear the farmer’s risk. There you can harvest fruit and vegetables for a whole year for a fixed amount of around 350 euros. And one year, as a subscriber, you may be able to put up with the fact that there is a disappointing potato harvest, but if next year there are no tomatoes, carrots and onions to be picked, then such models will come under heavy pressure.”

Old fries

Fleurbaey knows that there is still a lot to come, but today is all that matters at the moment. And today it has finally stopped raining and he is shaking up the grass he mowed on Wednesday, just so that it can dry properly before it goes into the silos on Friday. “We should have done this two weeks ago. It is important for animal feed that there is a lot of protein in those grasses. But the longer you wait before mowing, the less quality the grass becomes.”

Crops that were planted in the ground in the autumn do not get out, others that should have been sown and planted a long time ago do not get in. “Twenty percent of my potatoes from the fall are still in the ground. I couldn’t dig them up, the ground was so wet, you couldn’t pull them out. They still have to be removed, but the quality of those potatoes is of course now abysmal.”

Something that Van Avermaete absolutely does not want to contradict, although she also wants to make this comment. “What the farmers do not say is that the potato price was recently very high.” Avermaete does not yet dare to predict what the precise consequences will be for consumers. “But it is certainly not the case that the cookies will soon be more expensive due to the bad weather conditions for the sugar beets.”

In any case, Fleurbaey is not working on it yet, he says. Doing his bills, it’s for later. It is also impossible, because everything will also depend on the summer. Who knows, maybe it will be warm, with the occasional good downpour, and everything will still be more or less fine. Although he doesn’t dare hope for it.

“I don’t check the weather forecast anymore. I try to push it away. It is now time to look for plots that are in the least serious condition and where you can start. Search, look, adapt, close your eyes, clear your mind and move on.”