The persistent rain is causing Drenthe farmers headaches, because the wet subsoil makes it difficult to harvest potatoes and sugar beets, for example. “Where you would normally spend one hour on a hectare of beets, it is now two hours.”
“We started yesterday morning at 6 a.m. The ground here was still nice and dry, but gradually it will rain again during the morning. And if you get rain during the harvest, you get ‘lubrication’,” says Erik Emmens. The farmer from Zeijen can talk about it: last week he stopped the harvest on one of his pieces of land because it was simply too wet. “That plot has been torn apart. You shouldn’t do that too often.”
Wet soil also ensures that more sand and mud remains on the beets. “Part of the freight that goes to the sugar factory is then worthless. That costs money,” says Emmens. When he looks at his own beets, it doesn’t make him very happy. “As you can see, they are not very clean.”
In addition, too much rain causes the quality of the sugar beet to decline. “I have already understood from colleagues that the sugar content is lower this year than in previous years. That is a shame.”
The Zeijer farmer emphasizes that he is still lucky compared to fellow farmers. “I’ve already removed all the potatoes and half the beets too. Maybe a small part will remain in the ground. That’s a shame, but not a disaster.”
As a regional director at LTO Noord, he knows that other farmers are sometimes less fortunate. “There are some who will not get a significant part of the harvest out of the ground. That is very sad and can cause enormous damage to individual companies.”
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