Drought and Corn.

The scorching heat wave sweeping Western Europe is not much compared to that of India but at least they have the Monsoon rain to hope for over there, we don’t. Sure, the heat is a pain but there are ways around it. The drought, however, should be more of a concern. After all, about 60% of our drinking water comes from natural sources. Extreme drought has gripped most of Portugal and Spain and is now threatening northern Europe.

A few regions in France have already taken water restriction measures, and this is where the thing are becoming really interesting. Most of the water is actually used for agriculture, and about 50% of the water used for agriculture goes to corn. Now I am no farmer but from what I have read, corn happens to need much soil moisture during its growing seasons, (spring and summer) which means constant irrigation. One must also bear in mind that corn production used to be very small in France but that has changed – from 1,111,995 acres (450.000 ha) in 1955 it increased to about 8.6 million acres (3. 5 million ha) today, with so much more water needed. The European C.A.P. has greatly encouraged corn production by giving more subsidies to cereal farmers, and this does not even take into account the other effects of intensive farming such as water pollution…

So whereas there are many things that cannot be done about droughts, there are some things that can be done fairly - quickly and effectively. Once again it seems that Blair makes a lot of sense, let's cut the damn subsidies to corn farmers!