Drought: Northern France on alert after a hot spring
In Hauts-de-France, livestock breeders and farmers are worried. Due to the lack of rain in spring, their soils are very dry.
"We absolutely must have rain. Even if it does, financially, I estimate we've already lost €2,500 per hectare," said François Loywyck, a farmer in Wormhout (Nord). On 4.5 hectares, he estimated the losses at more than €11,000 on Thursday, June 5. At another farmer's farm, it rained four times less than in spring 2024. Laurent Declerk, a pig farmer in Laon-Plage (Nord), irrigated his fields for the first time in 36 years to grow barley.
In the Hauts-de-France region, February, March, and April were the wettest months recorded since 1959. During the spring, the sun heated the earth, and the water in and on the soil surface evaporated. "This spring of 2025 was the second driest spring in the Hauts-de-France region since records began. The state of the soil is roughly comparable to the end of July," explains Tristan Amm, a forecaster at Météo-France.
Watch the full report in the video above.
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