Rome, August 18, 2026

Whilst autumn and winter saw on one hand very high rainfall on the Atlantic and Mediterranean coasts (Spain, Portugal, western France), and on the other a band stretching from Central Europe to the Baltic states remaining below average, and the southern Alps experiencing their driest winter on record, all of Europe’s major agricultural production areas have been confronted with a persistent anticyclonic block from March onwards and consequently a rainfall deficit. 

Two major heatwaves — 17–30 June (the hottest June ever recorded in Western Europe, +3.06 °C, with all-time records in Poland, the Czech Republic, Germany, Hungary) and 4–19 July (the driest July in Spain since 1961, the driest ever recorded in Ireland, −70 per cent in France) — turned this deficit into a widespread agricultural drought. On 12 August 2026, the European Commission estimated that 50 per cent of the territory was under ‘watch’, ‘warning’ or ‘alert’ status and 9 per cent under ‘alert’, with the Loire, Po, Rhine and Danube at record low levels.

The 2026 growing season was characterised by the early onset of the phenomenon (the driest spring on record in Austria and the Czech Republic, with drought already established by March in Central Europe, and 39 per cent of the EU’s territory experiencing drought by mid-February) and by the concentration of the alert in the Middle Danube basin (65 per cent of Hungary affected) and France (more than 70 departments in drought crisis by mid-August and 63 per cent of groundwater levels below normal as at 1 August).

In terms of agriculture, at the end of July the Commission revised down its EU-27 cereal production forecast to 262.8 Mt (−9.3 per cent compared with 2025). By the end of July, 2026 was already shaping up to be the worst year since 2003 for Hungarian wheat (−29 per cent compared with the average) and Austrian wheat (−19 per cent), and the second-worst year on record for French maize after 1976 (more than −18 per cent). August estimates show that the 2026 situation in the historical rankings will deteriorate further for France (maize), the Czech Republic, Germany, Hungary, Croatia and Slovenia.

As regards livestock farming, the qualitative indicators from July–August (France: −10 to −20 per cent of usual harvest; grassland at 0–10 per cent of normal levels in Slovakia; herd culling already underway in Slovenia; fodder shortages in Germany, Austria and the Netherlands) raise fears of a fodder crisis for the winter of 2026–27.

Beyond the emergency measures needed to safeguard farm cash flow and prevent a spiral of livestock culling, fundamental measures must be taken to enhance the resilience of agricultural systems: improving soil health and water storage capacity, modernising and improving the efficiency of irrigation networks, and developing appropriate storage capacity.

Europe should not devise a response to the water crisis based on a restrictive, standardised approach at the plot level. The water efficiency of agricultural systems is not measured by a simple accounting balance of water consumed, but by their capacity to maintain the balance of the local hydrological cycle. Water in agriculture must be viewed as part of a much broader hydrological cycle, rather than simply as a production input.

Without massive structural investment, every new episode of drought risks further undermining agricultural production and, ultimately, European food security, whilst leading to the social and economic desertification of entire regions.

By Yves Madre, President of Farm Europe