IN 2018, a large part of Sweden, as well as Denmark, southern Norway and northern Finland experienced a period of extreme heat of which, according to weather forecasts, June was the warmest in more than 100 years in southernmost Sweden.
May 2018 was exceptionally warm in southern and central Sweden.
Sweden is a kingdom in north-west Europe occupying the eastern part of the Scandinavian Peninsula on the Gulf of Bothnia and the Baltic Sea.
It is a country situated close to the Arctic Circle.
As the unprecedented drought scorched large swathes of Sweden’s green pastures, farmers were sending their cattle to slaughter because they had no hay left to feed them.
“With no rain for over a month and high temperatures, fields were taken over by weeds when cereals fail to grow and some farmers are having to send their animals to slaughter,” said a distraught farmer.
While droughts, or periods of unusually low rainfall, are part of the expected pattern of precipitation in semi-arid and, more recently, in Southern Africa, many of us are generally not aware that droughts can occur anywhere and at anytime.
Unprepared for the unusually harsh drought, Swedish farmers were struggling to feed their animals and many were having to lead their cattle to early slaughter.
“It hasn’t been this bad for over 40 years,” complained another farmer.
A Swedish farmer, whose farming roots went back several generations, said she had to send 18 out of her 120 cows to slaughter due to the unusual drought.
Like many farms in Sweden, this dairy farm was rapidly running out of food for their livestock and was forced to feed her cattle from her winter reserves.
Farmers were being forced to disrupt their seasonal routines because crops, such as fodder for animals, were not growing the way they used to.
According to the national weather agency, the Swedish Meteorological and Hydrological Institute (SMHI), some regions had 80-100 percent less precipitation than normal in July.
The Swedish Government had promised to provide financial aid to the farmers, but the amounts and timeframes were unclear.
Warning against wildfires at the beginning of the harvest season, a spokesman for the Federation of Swedish Farmers confirmed: “It will take years to rebuild the quality and size of the cattle.”
The Swedish Meteorological and Hydrological Institute informed AFP that firefighters were, “…putting out between 20 and 30 wildfires per day near Stockholm alone,” as other blazes raged across the country, even in the Arctic circle.
Sweden’s King Carl XVI Gustaf, who is also a landowner, expressed his concern over the fires engulfing his nation and said in a statement: “I and the Royal Family would like to express our support to all those who have been affected by the fires”
Desperate for a solution to the emergency, some Swedish farmers set up the facebook support group Foderhjälpen to help each other feed their animals and share information about the situation.
In just over a week, the group grew by more than 25 000 members – connecting Swedes with animal food suppliers from Poland, the Netherlands, Germany, Britain and the Baltic States.
Many municipalities also offered the farmers to cut the grass in council-owned urban areas, such as parks.
However, farmers feared that despite availability, such grass could contain metal or rocks, which could harm or kill their animals.
A farmer in western Sweden, and one of the moderators of Foderhjälpen, explained that it is hard to be prepared for such a summer as the one the agricultural sector was facing.
“Few farmers can afford to keep silage that covers the need for more than one year. It’s also impractical,” he said, adding that he doubted the industry would be able to adjust quickly if “…such weather continues in the future.”
According to SMHI, the annual mean temperature in Sweden has been predicted to grow steadily from now until the year 2100.
“But the results obtained by studying different model calculations are not weather forecasts,” the agency added.
A professor at Lund University’s Centre for Environmental and Climate Research described the drought as an ‘extreme event that occurs quite rarely’.
According to him, the current drought can be compared to the summer of 1992, said to be ‘the worst in modern times. But these events do not provide scientists with enough data to clearly link them with climate change’.
The Summer of 1992 was a serious drought year also for Zimbabwe and Southern Africa.
Such droughts can happen ‘with or without climate change’.
Meanwhile, in southern Africa the current three-year-long drought in the northern parts of Limpopo also had a devastating impact on livestock and game in that province, particularly on rhino.
Land in the drought-stricken areas was devoid of all grazing, which had compelled people to buy feed at high cost. Concern was also expressed about conditions in the region’s communal farming areas.
Many areas had been rendered nearly desert-like since the drought began.
All pastures for grazers and browsers had been depleted, with game species such as kudu and impala succumbing to the drought in droves.
As in Sweden, some cattle ranchers in parts of Limpopo had to decrease their herds by as much as 50 percent.
It was vital for the Government to roll out drought relief for the farmers to survive, otherwise the few who remained would also lose their animals.
The consequence of droughts in sub-Saharan Africa cause significant humanitarian problems and localised degradation, since large numbers of animals converge on certain pastures, especially around water sources and wells.
This, in turn, causes long-term impoverishment among pastoralists, since they must sell animals cheaply and cannot afford to restock at the end of a drought season.
At the same time, it places extra stress on already ineffectual veterinary services, since weakened animals are more susceptible to pathogens.
Sweden, meanwhile, has become warmer – the effect is most visible in winters.
In a long-term perspective, a warmer climate implies that summers, especially in the south-east of Sweden, will become increasingly drier.
“That doesn’t mean we will be caught like this every year, but the conditions will be drier, which may be important for people who are dependent on water: city planners, farmers or businesses,” said the professor at Lund University’s Centre for Environmental and Climate Research.
“Climate change is something that needs to be dealt with, not worried about.”
With climate change at its near peak, globally and the current unpredictable weather patterns in Zimbabwe, we have to ask: Is Zimbabwe prepared for another drought year?
Dr Tony Monda holds a PhD in Art Theory and Philosophy and a DBA (Doctorate in Business Administration) and Post-Colonial Heritage Studies. He is a writer, lecturer and a specialist post-colonial scholar, Zimbabwean socio-economic analyst and researcher.
For views and comments, email: tonym.MONDA@gmail.com