Two years in a row Vicente Carmelo has lost his persimmon crop due to hail. In Alginet (Valencia), where their crops are, the ‘stones’ have been joined by torrential rains and strong winds. “The weather is getting crazier,” says the associate of AVA Asaja. According to data from Agroseguro, compensation for weather damage to crops and livestock farms does not stop growing. Last year they accounted for 722 million euros, very far from the 482 million registered in 2011. The increase registered at the end of last year is almost 50% with respect to the same of the previous decade.
It is not a point figure. The torrential rains, the late frosts,
hail storms or heat waves have caused four of the last five years (2017, 2018, 2020 and 2021) have brought the highest compensation in 42 years of history of the Spanish Combined Agricultural Insurance system. If in the five-year period 2012-2016 the average compensation was 517 million, the average for 2017-2021 rises to 661 million. A difference of 140 million per year, and that only refers to the insured land.
“It is clear that these phenomena that previously occurred with a lower or similar frequency, are much more virulent and much broader», says Sergio de Andrés Osorio, director of the Production and Communication area of Agroseguro, for whom there is no doubt that behind the trend is climate change. If before there were hail storms that could cover 20 kilometers around, now they extend for more than twice. Torrential rains that occurred once a century, with 400 l/m2 in 24 hours, in recent years have been reproduced in different parts of the country.
More extreme events
Climate change researchers insist on the difficulty of attributing a specific meteorological event to the influence of global warming, but they also point out that as average temperatures rise the risk growsor that extreme events multiply and exacerbate.
“There are years like 2017 with drought, which dominated, and other years in which it is seen that many extreme events of different types accumulate in different parts of the country”, points out Margarita Ruiz Ramos, researcher at the Center for Studies and Research for the Management of Agricultural and Environmental Risks of the Polytechnic University of Madrid (UPM).
Farmers are already exploring solutions, adapting the crops to the new seasonal climate regime or looking for varieties make them more resistant. But it is the extreme phenomena that appear at unexpected moments that are the most difficult to tackle, acknowledges Ruiz Ramos. “When the variability is very extreme, (these strategies) can fail,” he explains.
above 500 million
Until 2012, when a serious drought was added to other adverse phenomena, none of the agricultural compensation had risen above 500 million euros. That year they accounted for 732.7 million, but the following exercises fell below that threshold again, until 2017 arrived. From that moment on, every year they have exceeded the figure. Three of the last five years have even exceeded 700 million.
Last year’s agricultural indemnities, the second highest in Agroseguro’s records, bear this out. 2021, which began with a historic snowfall at the hands of Filomena, Has had a immense thermal amplitude. They went from the -25.2ºC registered in Molina de Aragón after the snowfall, the -21º in Teruel or the -14º in the Albacete air base to the 47º that were reached in August in the Alcantarilla air base (Murcia), 46.9º from Córdoba airport or 46.2º from Murcia.
In the first half of the year came hail storms, one of the phenomena that causes the most damage in the field along with drought. «Before they started in April, May or June and now there are even in the month of January», assures Osorio about the hail. “It’s another indicator. In the end, all this has an impact on us being in a record of compensation ».
In summer, the heat tightened in areas where it was not common to exceed 40 degrees. The heat wave was record breaking. In seventeen main stations, most of them located in the center and south of the peninsula, the maximum temperature recorded during the episode constituted the absolute temperature mark. a phenomenon that adds to the fact that summers last longer and longer in Spain: according to data from the State Meteorological Agency (Aemet) based on the average maximum temperatures, the summer season has been extended by almost five weeks compared to what was usual in the early 1980s. Everything starts earlier, but it also ends later. And then comes autumn and the dreaded isolated high-level depressions, the already popular DANA, and the risk of torrentiality.
“In the Mediterranean area there seems to be a certain tendency towards aridification,” says Ruiz Ramos. “But maybe more significant is how precipitation is distributed, because when it appears, the most intense and concentrated events are more frequent. This is not good for agriculture,” he explains. To stop the damage, he says, a good structural adaptation is key, which does not depend only on the farmer, such as water storage or improvements in the canalization.
Osorio confirms that the forecasts they handle on climate damage is on the rise. “The trend is growing. We cannot deny that.” And all this despite the fact that the insured area has not undergone major changes in recent years, although yes, it is slightly increasing the insured capital, for the transformation of crops.
Ruiz Ramos agrees. “The projections say that the meteorological conditions that are beginning to be frequent they will be more, but we will develop mechanisms to reduce the damage”, he says. For now, what seems clear is that some varieties that were optimal in Spain “may not be the same.”
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George is Digismak’s reported cum editor with 13 years of experience in Journalism