European Commission president Ursula von der Leyen has warned of the water scarcity risks facing farmers as climate change causes hotter and drier summers.
Delivering her annual state of the union address on Wednesday, she said summer 2026 was the “summer of truth”, during which Europe was hit with extreme weather conditions.
“Flames roared from the mountains of Ireland to the islands of Greece and Croatia,” she said.
Commission president Von der Leyen said Europe lost 12m tonnes of crops to fires during what were the “hottest summer months ever”.
“The science is clear, Europe is warming at double the global rate,” she said.
Food production
She said all of this points to challenges for European food production in the years ahead.
“We know the risk of water scarcity to farmers, SMEs, energy and supply chains, yet European pipes lose almost one in every four litres [of water], mostly through leakage,” she said.
“Crops need water to grow, livestock to survive, entire harvests depend on it.”
She called for a two-pronged response, for both climate-change mitigation and adaptation.
She added that the commission will soon publish a European Heatwave Plan, which will address climate-driven water and food-security risks, and it will develop a new European Water Initiative.
Leadership
The Commission president said Europe should be a leader in the rollout of climate-adaptation technologies, including the development of drought-resistant crops.
She warned that, without change, the past summer could simply prove to have been a “preview” of the drought and heatwave conditions to come.
However, she also said farmers were already rising to the prospect of never-ending summers and must be backed.
“Europe's farmers are the best in the world, and we will support them every step of the way,” she said.
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