Slovak farmers embark on their earliest barley and pea harvests yet

(Corrects name of chamber's chairman in paragraphs 9 and 12)

By Radovan Stoklasa

VELKY GROB, Slovakia, June 17 (Reuters) - Farmers in southern Slovakia have started their earliest harvest yet of barley and ‌pea crops as drought has accelerated ripening while cutting yields.

The Slovak Agriculture and Food Chamber ‌said the start of the harvest of winter barley, which began last week in the southwestern regions in the Danube lowlands, was ​about a week-and-a-half to two weeks earlier than typical.

Across Europe, where climate change is more marked than in other parts of the world, cereal harvesting dates have become progressively earlier in recent years, forcing farmers to change some crop varieties and sow at different times of year.

In fields outside Velky Grob, in southwestern Slovakia, as harvesters ‌picked peas early, farmers and agronomists ⁠worried about the impact of drought.

Tomas Paska from the Macaj group of farming companies said a mild winter had raised expectations of a good harvest but a dry ⁠April and May meant reduced yields for crops planted on poorer soils.

"We can talk about a relatively good harvest on irrigated fields, but in places without irrigation or with weaker soil, it shows that the high temperatures ahead ​of ​us will lead to a very rapid reduction in the ​volume of grain," he said.

UNPRECEDENTED DRYNESS FOLLOWED ‌BY RAIN

Slovakia reported the driest April since monitoring started 145 years ago, and May and early June were also dry. In the last week, heavy rain has fallen.

Much now depended on conditions as the harvest continues, the Slovak Agriculture and Food Chamber said.

"This is a trend that has been here for several years, the harvest is shifting and now the key will be what the weather will be during actual harvesting," ‌the chamber's chairman Jozef Sumichrast said.

"We see periods of drought ​that are switching with intensive rain, and that will continue to ​be a problem."

Apart from choosing drought-resistant seeds, ​farmers can also sow earlier in the northern hemisphere autumn, rather than in spring.

"Barley ‌is typically a spring crop, but now many ​farmers sow it in the ​autumn so it can benefit from the moisture in the autumn and winter and briefly in the spring. It often happens now that spring-sown barley is of no use," Sumichrast said.

Last year, ​Slovak farmers harvested 2.3 million metric ‌tons of wheat, the most common crop, according to official data. An increase in the ​area sown and higher yields meant that was about 20% above the 2024 harvest.

(Reporting by ​Radovan Stoklasa and Jan Lopatka; editing by Barbara Lewis)