LONDON // A chronic lack of spring rainfall across much of northern Europe has raised fears of a poor harvest leading to yet another increase in global food prices.
The situation is so dire that the United Nations food agency is warning that unless Europe receives significant rain this month, the effects on prices could produce the sort of food riots in poorer countries that broke out across the world in 2008.
Although officials are reluctant to classify the long, hot, dry spell as a drought, many parts of Europe have had only 40 per cent of normal rainfall over the past three months. The figure is much lower in several crucial food-producing regions.
The United Kingdom's Meteorological Office revealed on Wednesday that in the major crop-producing area of East Anglia, only 15.7mm of rain - 21 per cent of average rainfall - had fallen between the beginning of March and the end of May .
It represented the driest spring for 101 years. At the same time, average temperatures in England were so high that they produced the warmest spring since records began in 1659.
Parts of France, the EU's leading wheat producer, are experiencing similar problems and the government has now set up a "drought committee" that is limiting water consumption in many regions.
Meanwhile, farmers in the Rhineland-Palatinate region in south-west Germany are reporting serious financial losses from crop failure and mounting irrigation costs, while the shortage of rain is affecting production in Poland, part of the other large grain-producing area of Europe.
The International Grains Council has produced a gloomy report predicting that world grain stocks will probably slide for a second year running with the dry weather in the EU exacerbated by similar conditions in parts of the US.
Russia, the world's third-largest producer of wheat, barley and rye, struck the only optimistic note last weekend when Prime Minister Vladimir Putin announced the country would lift its ban on grain exports from July 1.
The ban was imposed last August after Russia experienced an unprecedented drought that, along with widespread wildfires, cut grain output by about 37 per cent.
It remains doubtful, however, if the lifting of the Russian ban will ease a situation that has already pushed world grain prices to near record levels.
The Rome-based Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO), the UN's food agency, admitted in a recent report that the dry weather in Europe had dashed its hopes of seeing a rise of up to 5 per cent in EU wheat and barley production this year.
Instead, France is talking about a reduction of about 11 per cent, Germany 7 per cent and Britain up to 25 per cent.
"Europe is entering a very critical month," said Abdolreza Abbassian, a grains economist at the FAO. "We can't do without rain any more. If the current situation continues, prices will respond very aggressively.
"Our fear is that we still haven't seen the worst of food inflation in vulnerable countries and that could be coming. One way or another, rising food prices bring hardship on their people and you can't rule out the possibility of further food riots.
"A lot depends on the next few weeks and it's impossible to predict how Mother Nature will behave."
The reason for the unusually hot, dry weather appears to be a westerly shift of the Gulf Stream, which normally brings moist air from the Atlantic across Britain and the northern half of Europe.
Instead, it has brought wetter-than-usual conditions this year to western Scotland while points further east have remained parched.
Nicolas Dufour, a French farmer in the Ile-de-France region, told Le Monde: "We began to get concerned [about the lack of rainfall] at the beginning of April after seeing March go by without any real rain.
"Now we have stopped believing in rain. Each time a shower looks like coming on, the weather turns and there isn't a drop."
France's special drought committee has now set about trying to conserve water stocks. In Britain, the government has ordered water companies to review their drought preparations.
Caroline Spelman, the UK's environment secretary, admitted after a meeting with leading farmers last week that the dry weather had caused "irreversible" damage to agriculture while insisting: "We don't have a drought yet".
"The harvest will be earlier and the yield will be lower. Everyone has a role to play to make sure we are prepared," she said.
"It is dry but we don't have a drought yet. Some parts of the country are more water-stressed than others."
Duncan Green, the head of research at the international famine-relief charity Oxfam, said that while rising cereal prices would make life more difficult for many Europeans, they could be devastating for those in the developing world.
"We are very worried about high prices," he told The Guardian. "Food riots are definitely a possibility.
"If you're struggling to feed your kids and the price of bread suddenly doubles, it could prove the tinder that sparks the whole thing off."
dsapsted@thenational.ae
