How is climate change affecting agriculture and forestry?

Compared to the 1970s, apple trees are now blooming around 13 days earlier, for example. However, the blossoms are very sensitive to frost, and since the weather often turns very cold at night so early in the year, fruit growers increasingly have to contend with severe frost damage to their crops (as was the case in spring 2017).¹ The drought seen in recent years has led to considerable regional crop losses. In 2018, for example, grain yields were 18 percent below average, with Schleswig-Holstein (-31 percent), Brandenburg (-27 percent), and Saxony-Anhalt (-26 percent) being hit hardest.²

The lack of frost is also becoming a problem for farming. Many arable crops, such as winter wheat, need a period of cold called vernalization during a certain growth phase to trigger flowering. If the cold doesn’t come, harvests suffer.

Drought stress due to less summer rainfall and a greater need for water on account of higher temperatures, the accelerated growth and spread of pests, and the growing danger of forest fires all pose threats to forestry. At least 285,000 hectares of forest died off across Germany – more than five times the area of Lake Constance – following the droughts of 2018 and 2019.³