Wine wins, crops lose, as farmers grapple with record Balkans heat

By Aleksandar Vasovic and Fatos Bytyci

BACKI PETROVAC, Serbia/RAHOVEC, Kosovo (Reuters) - Rastislav Pucovski held a fistful of soy beans shriveled to the size of peppercorns on his farmland in northern Serbia where the soil, dried to dust by drought, swirled in the wind.

A brief rain shower, the first in over 40 days, offered no relief. The surrounding fields, near the town of Backi Petrovac, remained parched, the corn and soy crops withered.

"Everything is bone dry," said Pucovski, 48, as he surveilled his land this week. "I don't know how we will sell it."

Serbia, like much of the Balkans, experienced its hottest summer on record, fuelled by repeated heatwaves that pushed temperatures above 40 degrees Celsius (104 degrees Fahrenheit).

The heat, coupled with drought, has strained the region's fragile power grid, reduced key water reserves and led to crop failures. It has also raised concerns about creeping climate change, including erratic rainfall and higher temperatures that much of southern Europe is already experiencing.

Balkan wine growers say they could be rare winners because the hot weather has boosted the sugar content in their grapes. But corn, soy, sunflowers and some vegetables can be devastated, farmers said.

Agriculture accounts for around 6% of Serbia's GDP. Preliminary data by producers suggest Serbian corn yields may drop by about 20%.

One problem is water access. Serbia, which has historically enjoyed plenty of rain, only irrigates 1.4% of its agricultural land, Statistics Office data show.

Hundreds of millions of euros would be needed for it to reach the global average of 17% of farmland under irrigation, said Belgrade-based agricultural analyst Branislav Gulan.

He expects farming revenue losses this year of around 500 million euros ($554.35 million) because of drought.

In neighbouring Bosnia, drought may halve the corn yield to 4.5-5 tons per hectare, said Dragan Mandic, an expert at the Agricultural Institute of Bosnia’s Serb Republic.

Dejan Jovanovic, a farmer from the Bijeljina region, said his crops "were devastated."

"The corn leaves are paper-white and crumbly, the grains are tiny."

GRAPES BY NIGHT

The hot weather has drastically altered the grape harvest in the Balkans this year. Producers have been forced to pick grapes earlier than anyone can remember. Some harvests will be smaller but the quality will be better, producers said.

In Croatia's eastern Ilok region, the headlights of grape harvesting machines pierce the dark lanes between vines. Wine makers have started picking at night because the grapes begin fermenting too fast when picked in the heat of the day.

"It's better to harvest at night because it is not so hot," said Darko Sili, a machine driver.

This year's harvest will be nearly a month earlier than usual and could be up to 30% smaller due to the heat, said Vesna Stajner, a spokeswoman for the Ilocki Podrumi winery.

In Kosovo, picking began in August, also a month earlier than last year. Owners said they scrambled to find pickers so early in the season.

Dozens of workers gathered at dawn in the vineyard of the Stone Castle winery near the southern town of Rahovec.

“Our great grandparents cannot remember grapes being harvested so early,” said Nebi Duraj, grape production coordinator at Stone Castle.

There's an upside. “It is like eating sugar,” a worker in his 60s said as he filled his mouth with white grapes.

Duraj said the wine quality would be better than ever this year because of the sweetness, which turns to alcohol.

“When you look for wine in the coming years, ask for the 2024 vintage.”

($1 = 0.9020 euros)

(Reporting by Aleksandar Vasovic, Fatos Bytyci, Daria Sito-Sucic and Antonio Bronic; Editing by Edward McAllister and Sharon Singleton)