Portugal's Wheat Crop Wiped Out By Drought - 5% Of Last Year's Harvest

[hatrack]

LISBON - Portugal's worst drought on record has wiped out the wheat crop and is threatening the country's richest tourism region, authorities said on Thursday. Portugal is among the worst hit of European countries suffering from drought. Taps have run dry in 43 towns and the quality of drinking water in a few areas is worsening, according to the government's Water Institute.

The National Statistics Institute said output of hard winter wheat, used in bread, had fallen 95 percent from last year's harvest, to 9,000 tonnes. Overall grain output was down 60 percent, "confirming the current grains season as the worst in recent decades", the agency said in its July agriculture forecast.

Joao Machado, head of the Farmers' Confederation of Portugal, called for more government assistance. "This drought is so severe that it's going to affect all national production this year. We're going to see how it is already affecting next year's output through shortage of water," he told private TSF radio.

EDIT

The whole Iberian nation of 10 million people is in severe or extreme drought, the Water Institute said in a routine report. Thirsty eucalyptus trees, a source of pulp and paper, are expected to see growth slow by a quarter this year, a potential loss of 28 million euros ($34 million) for the industry, the institute said. Forest fires have averaged more than 100 a day this year and burned about 134,500 hectares (337,000 acres) of woodland, more than in all of 2004, early forestry service estimates say.

EDIT

http://www.planetark.com/dailynewsstory.cfm/newsid/32106/story.htm

[gristy]

1. The Sahara has crossed the Mediterranean.

:(

[OneBlueSky]

2. what will it take to convince people that we're destroying . . .

our home planet? . . . droughts in Europe, melting permafrost in Siberia and Alaska, dead zones in the Gulf of Mexico, etc. etc. . . how soon before humankind makes the Earth totally uninhabitable by our own species, and millions of others? . . .

[phantom power]

3. Many people will never be convinced.

Even as they are dying of famine, or poverty, or disease, they'll be convinced it's just "bad luck", or "god's will", or "Bill Clinton's penis."

I've come to believe that it's a fallacy to think that "Just as soon as things get bad enough, everybody will wake up and see the light." Some will, but many won't, ever.