BUDAPEST, April 18 (Xinhua) -- Hungarian agriculture faces a prolonged period of dry weather, and the lack of rainfall can lead to drops in the production of wheat and corn, local media reported here on Thursday.
"The drought situation is the worst in the last twenty years; the main reason for this is the lack of rain, as over the last three months precipitation did not reach half of its usual average," the Grain Producers Association Hungary(GOSZ) said in a statement published in the agricultural online magazine Agrotrend.
"Yields can see a drop of 10 percent to 20 percent compared with 2018, between one and two million tons in the two main cereals such as wheat and corn," GOSZ added.
Over the last decade, corn production in Hungary has been around 7-8 million tons per year while wheat production stood at around 5 million tons, according to the official numbers of the Hungarian Central Statistics Office KSH.
Hungarian experts noted that the situation got worst in the southern and eastern parts of Hungary.
"Although there was rain in the last week, the deeper layer of arable soil are still extremely dry," said GOSZ, adding that some 100-150 mm of precipitation were still missing from the soil.
The Hungarian government prepares to import crops from Ukraine and Russia to counter the situation. Experts of the Hungarian Meteorological Service expect the remaining of April, May and June to be hot and dry as well.
