The drought was consistent with climate models that predicted “an extreme weather battleground” between continental weather systems in central Europe, Raes said. “The big floods and droughts of the last 20 years have been in that area,” he added.
Agricultural production has now slumped in large parts of a zone stretching eastwards from central France through south-central Germany into Poland, Hungary and Ukraine, and southwards into northern Italy and Spain.
Grain harvests in Germany have fallen 11% and apple harvests 21% on last year’s figures, while a 28% drop in corn output is expected by government officials in France. In Poland, record lows in river water levels have revealed Jewish tombstones and Soviet fighter planes, as well as human remains, buried for decades or more.