00:00This is Evelyn, the youngest of the Seller family's 60 cows.
00:03She was born today, but while one calf has arrived,
00:06their organic farming operation is being forced to shrink its herd.
00:09They've already sold several cows and had to slaughter two prematurely.
00:13The reason? There simply isn't enough feed, and buying more is getting expensive.
00:17We've already made our first purchases of additional feed,
00:20and over the next month or two, we'll certainly have to spend another 10,000 to 12,000 euros.
00:26We'll probably also be down around 10 to 15 percent on milk.
00:30And for grain, we're expecting yields to be between 10 and 60 percent lower.
00:35That's obviously pretty severe.
00:38Tanja and Hermann Seller have been farming organically for 35 years.
00:42Alongside dairy farming, they grow vegetables on 115 hectares.
00:46Normally that includes several varieties of pumpkin,
00:50but this year most of the seeds didn't even germinate.
00:53There simply wasn't enough water.
00:54And drought isn't the only problem German farmers are facing.
00:58Farmers are currently under many different kinds of pressure.
01:01For one thing, they are being affected by the war in the Middle East,
01:04because it has changed fertilizer prices.
01:06It has also led to higher diesel prices and rising transport costs.
01:12The second issue is the dryness of the soil.
01:15There's been almost no rainfall since mid-June.
01:18Experts aren't calling this a catastrophic harvest year.
01:20But they say the trend is worrying as the climate changes.
01:23Germany's Farmers Association is demanding government action.
01:29Policymakers need to act now.
01:31They need to do so to ensure that food security based on domestic production
01:35can continue to be guaranteed in the future.
01:40The Farmers Association is calling for aid, including a further reduction in the tax on diesel.
01:46Federal Agriculture Minister Alois Reiner wants to wait for the final harvest figures
01:50at the end of August to assess the losses, but has already promised farmers assistance.
01:55We already have targeted measures in place, such as our 200-million-euro liquidity assistance program
02:01with the Specialized Agricultural Bank.
02:04And we're working at full speed to ensure that EU fertilizer aid reaches farms quickly,
02:09with minimal bureaucracy where it's needed most.
02:13Financial assistance for drought-hit farmers is one thing.
02:17But experts see particular room for improvement in the way water is managed across the landscape.
02:22In the past, the focus was always on getting water out of agricultural land and the wider landscape as quickly
02:28as possible.
02:29Because too much water is a problem, not only during floods.
02:34Standing water in fields can also have negative effects.
02:37But now we are facing a new situation with very dry periods occurring more frequently.
02:42That means we need to make sure that water is not constantly drained away.
02:46The sellers are already adapting. This spring they built a reservoir to irrigate their fields during droughts.
02:52It came too late for the pumpkins, but it's the first step in adapting to climate change.
02:56And Herrmann has more ideas.
02:59One adaptation is to lease additional land so that we can produce more feed.
03:04The other is to try growing varieties of grain, as well as forage crops that can cope better with drought.
03:11Agricultural scientists like Lorenz Kottmann are working on more drought-resistant crops.
03:16But developing them doesn't necessarily mean farmers will grow them.
03:20Crops grown in Germany are primarily those that can be sold successfully and for which there's a strong market.
03:26Important crops such as wheat, barley, rapeseed and maize will certainly continue to play a major role.
03:32But I expect that more crops will be added to the mix, that there will be more experimentation and that
03:38some of these new crops will certainly prove very successful.
03:45Markus Seller plans to take over the family farm.
03:47And he's already thinking about crops that might once have seemed unlikely here.
03:53I think we may be able to grow kiwis here in the future.
03:57But of course, that also comes with a certain risk.
04:00Because we don't just have the increasingly hot and dry summers, we still have relatively harsh winters.
04:06The question is whether these subtropical fruits can cope with that and survive.
04:11That's the major dilemma we are facing.
04:14Whether Evelyn will one day produce milk on the Seller's family organic farm is uncertain.
04:19But one thing is clear.
04:21If droughts continue, cows like her may find less and less to eat on these dry fields.
04:26And for Germany's farmers, adapting to a changing climate is no longer a question for the future.
04:31It's already happening.
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