German farming industry expands drought-resilient crops, irrigation to resist drier climate

The farming industry in Germany is adapting to increasingly dry and hot summers by planting more drought-resistant crops and irrigating larger parts of the arable land, the Federal Statistical Office (Destatis) has said. The farming land for relatively drought-resistant soybeans, for example, grew over 156 percent between 2016 and 2024. During the same period, the number of businesses farming the crop, which is mostly used for livestock feed, grew from 2,400 to 4,500.

Reviewing the period between 2009 and 2022, Destatis also found that the land area equipped or ready for irrigation grew by nearly one quarter (23.9%) to just under five percent of the total land used for agriculture. “Increasingly long dry spells require more sustainable water management in agriculture,” the statistical office said, adding that this was reflected in the rapid expansion of farms using drip irrigation by almost 80 percent to 5,700 during the same time period. Instead of overhead sprinkling, water drops are directly led to the plants’ roots, making water use more efficient.

Grain harvests and other farming products are increasingly at risk in Germany and other parts of Europe as the region faces rising average temperatures and more extreme weather events, including both prolonged droughts and heavy floods. But climatic changes not only affect agriculture; Germany’s forests have also felt the impact of droughts and, according to recent research, are turning from a carbon sink to net-emitters of greenhouse gases.