This Summer's Heat and Drought Hit Crops Hard Across Europe, Data Show

Farmers across Europe are grappling with the fallout of a summer of extreme heat, drought and wildfires worsened by climate change, according to an analysis by Carbon Brief. The summer brought shrunken potatoes in the Netherlands, reduced carrot harvests in France, dried-up rice fields in Italy and scorched olive groves around the Mediterranean, and global food prices are now at their highest level since early 2023, driven partly by heatwaves, according to the UN Food and Agriculture Organization.

European Commission data show most EU countries expect lower cereal production this year than in 2025, with France's harvest of wheat, barley and oats set to drop by almost 8 megatonnes and Germany's by nearly 4 megatonnes. Til Feike, a cropping systems expert at the Julius Kuhn Institute, said Germany and Austria were "hit hard by a long-lasting dry period in combination with record-high heatwaves," leaving dry grassland for animals and lower yields of maize, a key fodder crop.

A European Commission Joint Research Centre bulletin found that heat and a lack of water had "substantially worsened" crop expectations across western and central Europe, with local crop failures "likely" in France, southern Germany, northern and central Italy and Hungary. Slovakia, Austria and Hungary face the largest cereal yield declines, of more than a tonne per hectare, while irrigated crops in Portugal saw the largest yield increases.

June's record heatwave in western Europe, the region's hottest June on record and one a rapid climate attribution study found would have been "virtually impossible" 50 years ago, contributed to an estimated 2 billion to 2.3 billion euros in cumulative grain production losses, according to the Energy and Climate Intelligence Unit, with France, Germany, Hungary and Spain accounting for 86% of the lost revenue.

In the UK, cereal and oilseed yields are on track for the worst harvest since detailed records began in 1984, with the Agriculture and Horticulture Development Board's 2026 surveys projecting barley yields down 15%, oats down 14% and wheat down 6% compared with the previous year.