by Sven-Olaf Malmqvist, M4L Board of Trustees, Owner at Grytasa
Living in a country like Sweden and having a farm is kind of easy life. You will not be exposed to any extreme weather not to dry not to wet but this year differs. Down south in Sweden where I live (close to Copenhagen), you get your bearing right no rain since late April. It means that that the first cut of grass is fine but second is gone and we all cross our fingers for the third one. Having a number of horses, we better start to import feed stuffs.
All grain is harvested with half yield and Sweden goes from net exporter to net importer of everything related with grain and roughage.
An old saying in Sweden is that the sugar beet leafs should cover the field so no soil can be spotted around the very famous Swedish Midsummer (June 25th). This year still not covered, and we talk about of August 10th.
Farmers has been forced to inforce old initiatives like let the cattle in to the forests and in some places harvest the leaf on the branches of leafy trees, this we did last time during WW2.
The dry weather in Sweden has led to wildfires in the forest up north and as when I write this column it´s still on with 100 000 of hectares affected, probably more that in California right now where they are used to it. A friend of mine told me that they have a terrible drought in New South Wales and now also Queensland as well and they have to carry water in a long distance to keep the livestock alive.
In every part of the world you can find constraints and difficulties but in particular in Africa and some Asian countries where they are exposed to extremes more or less every year. A huge difference is that a rich country like Sweden has the means to overcome the situation by import which is not valid for all countries and there must the world society act and try to ease the situation.
Read the full article in the Milling and Grain magazine online, HERE.
Living in a country like Sweden and having a farm is kind of easy life. You will not be exposed to any extreme weather not to dry not to wet but this year differs. Down south in Sweden where I live (close to Copenhagen), you get your bearing right no rain since late April. It means that that the first cut of grass is fine but second is gone and we all cross our fingers for the third one. Having a number of horses, we better start to import feed stuffs.
All grain is harvested with half yield and Sweden goes from net exporter to net importer of everything related with grain and roughage.
An old saying in Sweden is that the sugar beet leafs should cover the field so no soil can be spotted around the very famous Swedish Midsummer (June 25th). This year still not covered, and we talk about of August 10th.
Farmers has been forced to inforce old initiatives like let the cattle in to the forests and in some places harvest the leaf on the branches of leafy trees, this we did last time during WW2.
The dry weather in Sweden has led to wildfires in the forest up north and as when I write this column it´s still on with 100 000 of hectares affected, probably more that in California right now where they are used to it. A friend of mine told me that they have a terrible drought in New South Wales and now also Queensland as well and they have to carry water in a long distance to keep the livestock alive.
In every part of the world you can find constraints and difficulties but in particular in Africa and some Asian countries where they are exposed to extremes more or less every year. A huge difference is that a rich country like Sweden has the means to overcome the situation by import which is not valid for all countries and there must the world society act and try to ease the situation.
Read the full article in the Milling and Grain magazine online, HERE.
The Global Miller
This blog is maintained by The Global Miller staff and is supported by the magazine Milling and Grain
which is published by Perendale Publishers Limited.
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