Czech Republic: Farmers say barley damaged by weather caprices

Heavy rain taking turns with tropical heat have damaged much of this year's grain harvest and the Agrarian Chamber plans to ask the cabinet for help, its spokeswoman Eugenie Linkova told CTK August 09, Prague Daily Monitor posted the same day.

The quality of barley has fallen dramatically because of weather changes and cannot be used for malting. The Chamber thinks the situation is disastrous and affects thousands of farmers, and much of this year's harvest cannot be used for alimentary purposes," she said.

Linkova said grains have started to germinate because of the extreme weather changes, which means the plants cannot be harvested with combine harvesters and part of the grains cannot be threshed out.

"This happens on a fragment of land every year, but the loss is negligible. This year, it has hit almost 70 percent of the total area," Linkova added.

The Chamber's president Jan Veleba told CTK after the meeting that farmers would make estimates of the damage caused by the unfavourable weather and then would ask the government for its partial covering.

11 August, 2006