October 14, 2002

                                                             Crop Travel Area

                                                                     Click on map to enlarge

Crop Travel included meetings and fields stops in the following countries:

 Czech Republic      Slovakia      Hungary      Serbia       Romania 

 To go to travel pictures click here.

In late July and early August, USDA’s Foreign Agricultural Service traveled through Eastern Europe to assess the conditions of the 2002/03 crops. Travel included coverage of the main agricultural regions of the Czech Republic, Slovakia, Serbia, Hungary and Romania, and it was conducted from July 22 through August 8th. Various government sources, industry representatives and farmers were consulted during the trip as the team continued to gather field information in its goal to accurately assess the 2002/03 situation. 

Crop Travel Notes by Country:

Czech Republic

The Czech Republic is widely expected to be in the next group of nations admitted into the European Union (EU) in 2004.  The country's largest field crop production consists of wheat, barley and rapeseed.   Much of the Czech Republic's crops are grown in its large and most fertile region known as Moravia, a wide valley, south-east of the capital, Prague.

This year, summer dryness reduced most all crop yields while early summer heat specifically targeted wheat and to a greater extent rapeseed.  Alluding to the benefits of an ideal cool and wet spring, a local proverb holds that a cold May will result in "heaven in your barn."  While the season's crops weren't blessed with the desired conditions, they did largely escape damage from the August downpours as winter grains were already harvested when the heavy rains began.  Harvest was conducted a week to ten days early because of the hot, dry weather in the spring.

Wheat remains the nation’s most important crop with about 4.0 million tons produced each year. The vast majority of seed is planted in autumn.  During the final weeks of July 2002, the wheat harvest was observed to be in full swing but winding down.  Wheat is planted in September or October and harvested in late July or early August.  Rapeseed harvesting, which usually begins at the end of June, began earlier this year and by the end of July had been completed.  Rapeseed, is planted the last week of August and remains, by far, the country’s dominant oilseed crop at 800,000 tons.  Barley is also an important crop to the nation and the Czechs have the  highest consumption of beer per capita in the world.  Typically 500,000 – 600,000 hectares of barley are planted, producing anywhere from 1.6- 2.5 million tons, with this year being on the low end of average.  A  majority of barley is a spring planted variety. 

Slovakia

Western Slovakia, just north of Hungary and east of Austria is where Slovak agricultural is concentrated.  Wheat, corn, barley, rapeseed and sunflower are the principle field crops. 

Wheat is typically grown on 400,000 hectares with (5,000 being durum) and yields average about 4.0 tons per hectare.  This year an early harvest is expected to have produced 1.6 million tons.  The output is consistent with average yields, but significantly less than last year’s bumper 1.9 million ton crop.   The dryness, however was beneficial to its quality  Corn production is estimated at 700,000 tons for 2002/03, barley at 700,000, sunflower at 110,000 and rapeseed at 200,000 tons. Additionally, about 30,000 hectares are typically planted to sugar beet, 25,000 to potatoes and 10,000 to soybeans.  Also, apples, peas, grapes and other assorted vegetables are grown as well.  The area is at hazard for freezes, and in April 2002 a late, damaging frost destroyed blossoms on orchard trees, significantly lowering fruit production. Slovakia's farmers have accomplished putting 13 percent of their crops under minimum till, the largest amount in Eastern Europe. According to local farmers there are some significant benefits received from practicing minimum till.  Those cited include less evaporation loss to the summer sun as moisture lingers longer, protected under last season's debris and mulch. Also, as a result of unplowed fields there is is an increase in beneficial earth worms to aid in root development.  

Hungary

Hungary's agriculture is helped by relatively modern technologies and practices, a progressive attitude, rich soils, a large plain ideally suited for field crops and plenty of summer heat.   Crops in Hungary do however have some adverse factors working against them, including weather fluctuations.  The country is landlocked and experiences extremes of a continental climate, but also receives moderating maritime air and additional precipitation influences from the Adriatic and Mediterranean Seas.  Problems arise from periodic rainfall surpluses and deficits and temperature extremes can be both too hot in the summer and too cold in the winter.  The winter temperatures in Hungary do, at times, drop low enough to cause winterkill on unprotected dormant crops. Last winter, temperatures briefly dropped to the threshold of winter plant survival at -20 Celsius (-4 F), but winter crops survived, insulated under a protective layer of snow. During the 2002/03 season, a spring and early summer drought caused withering conditions for crops across the country. During the spring and early summer, the Great Hungarian Plain in the east was the driest region of the country and also was in the worst shape.

Hungary typically exports surplus wheat to neighboring countries.  As a result of the drought, the wheat crop will below the average by about 10% to 3.9 million tons. The barley crop is estimated at 1.1 million tons and is 60% autumn planted, 40% spring planted.  The corn crop is exported equally by three methods: train, truck and barge. While crude by western standards, the ports on the working Danube River are very effective. 

As for oilseeds, Hungary produces both sunflower seed (estimated at 700,000 MT) and rapeseed (est. at 180,000 MT). Additionally, soybeans are grown but production is small (53,000 MT) and isolated due to limiting climatic factors and regional tastes.

Serbia

Vojvodina is the most fertile swath of land in Serbia and its center is comparable to the best black earth soils of any in east Europe. Vojvodina lies just north of Belgrade and extends north to the Hungarian border and stretches from Croatia in the west to Romania in the east. The farms closest the Romanian border suffered most from the 2002 spring and early summer drought. The west and central areas fared considerably better, having had more frequent and timely rainfall. Central and western Vojvodina also have better agricultural soils, which are softer, and more penetrable.  While eastern Vojvodina is climatologically the driest region of Serbia, this year's dryness was especially harsh. The agricultural problems facing eastern Vojvodina (Banat) were compounded by the fact that it has the poorer, rather impervious clay soils. 

Surprisingly, sunflower in Serbia was managing the dryness very well and much of the crop was large and healthy, showing no signs of stress.  The sunflower heads were full, and seeds developed all the way into the center, indicating no pollination problems.  Serbia produces more soybeans than any other country in Eastern Europe (240,000 tons for Serbia) and Vojvodina has the highest planted concentration of them. The soybeans were in very poor condition, dryness had overwhelmed the crop.  Plants should have been waist high, barely reached knee-level; Leaves were brown or yellow. 

Serbia's predominant crop is corn (5.4 million tons in 2002/03), followed by wheat (2.2 million tons).  Additionally 200-300,000 tons of both soya and sunflower are produced annually while 250-300 tons of barley is grown.  Serbian farmers grow a variety of vegetables, herbs, burley tobacco and sugar beets. The soils are good for specialty vegetable crops but growing them is a risk because of the lack of irrigation.  The flat agricultural valley of Vojvodina is crisscrossed by a series of channels which were used during the communist era to provide irrigation (mostly from the Danube River), but are now left full of water and largely idle.  Farmers and local jurisdictions lack the money to repair, upgrade or improve them, to bring this water onto the fields.  This large network of dormant channels remains impressive and seems to be a potentially large resource for Yugoslav farmers in the future after more money returns to the country.   A recurring, widespread problem facing farmers is the lack of capital or the difficulties in acquiring it and Yugoslavian banks offer excessively high credit rates that lie beyond the means of many farmers.

Before the Second World War the land was divided rather evenly between small private plots of land, less than 10 hectares in size, and large state-owned kombinats. Yugoslavia was one of the few eastern block countries that allowed the small-scale privatized farms to exist. They were often divided up further as the farms were passed down through family lineage. Now, tiny two and three hectare plots are quiet common.  The kombinats or public farms had hundreds or thousands of employees and were run by the state. They are slowly being privatized piece by piece, and are expected to eventually be phased out. A problem, not only for Serbia, but for much of Eastern Europe is that large numbers of people are employed by these agriculture entities. There are simply too many people working for these state-owned, multi-faceted organizations, but the prospect of letting workers go, raises the issue of paying unemployment aid, also from the state.

This year, Serbian wheat quality is expected to be improved, a result of the dry season.  Serbia's neighbors and the nearby middle-eastern countries comprise its primary wheat exporting markets.  Buyers include the countries of Albania, Macedonia, Bosnia and Iran. Apparently, the agricultural ministry intends to increase planted area to soybeans and decrease wheat production over the next few years.

Romania

Romania suffered heavily from drought in both its western and southern provinces; These are two of its largest and most important agricultural regions. Corn, the nation's number one crop was observed to be in significantly worse shape, relative to the conditions in the other nearby countries.  USDA's corn production is estimated at 7.0 million tons, down strikingly from the 8.6 million ton five-year average, but still above last year's drought-reduced level of 6.5 million tons.  Sunflower, the more drought tolerant crop was also suffering from long-term dryness in Romania. This was markedly different from sunflower in Serbia and Hungary, where it was doing quite well.  The plants were less dense, their heads were smaller and noticeably less filled with seeds.  Weeds also grew unchecked in the fields.  The sunflower heads' centers were commonly void of seeds, indicating stress during pollination.  In the Banat region of Western Romania, some farmers planted their summer crops in June, wisely waiting until moisture levels were higher after some mid-season showers. These farmers' intuition was rewarded in late July and August as significant rains returned in time to aid the later sown fields.  The fields that were planted on time, typically in April for corn, were in very bad shape. The wheat crop suffered severely under drought with estimated production at a mere 4.3 million tons, down from last year's bumper crop of 6.7 million tons. Farmers stated that some areas of Romania were so dry that fall planted wheat didn't germinate until spring.

Double cropping is rarely practiced because of the general absence of summer precipitation and the overall lack of irrigation.  Irrigation was once a major player in Romania's agriculture but has fallen victim to neglect and the pillaging of scavengers.  The relatively low price of land in Romania is also a deterrent to irrigation.  If farmers do have the money, it is probably more effective for them to buy additional land and plant more area to low-yielding crops than it is to invest in irrigation technologies and reap higher yields. 

Picture Gallery:

                                                   Czech Republic

Mature grains in the Czech Republic

Harvest in Czech

Rapeseed Crushing Plant

                                                        Slovakia

Slovakia Vineyard/Apple Sorter

Slovakian Sunflower

Slovakian Corn

                                       Hungary

Baled Hay in Hungary

Drought Damaged Corn in Hungary