The ancient system of grain production has been restored in Europe

More than 2,300 years ago, the ancient Greeks integrated the Black Sea Basin into the food distribution system of the Mediterranean world. However, wars that broke out in the Black Sea Basin or the Mediterranean Region, such as the Ottoman-Russian wars in the eighteenth century, the First and Second World Wars in the twentieth century, and the Russian invasion of Ukraine today, could block the functioning of the production-consumption system.

The Hungarian research group observed profound changes in the regional arrangement of grain production in Europe from two aspects. First, the agro-technological advancement in Eastern and Central Europe has pulled the focus of European cereal production from West to East. This seemingly new phenomenon is, in fact, the restoration of a system that existed – with longer or shorter interruptions – for approximately two and a half thousand years. The two pillars of this consumption-production system launched by the ancient Greeks were the food surplus produced in the plains surrounding the Black Sea and food demand in the Mediterranean Region. The engine of the other factor is the global climate change, which has shifted the focus of arable land and the increase of average crop yields northwards in recent decades.

According to a study contributed by Zsolt Pinke, Senior Researcher at the Department of Physical Geography, Faculty of Science, Eötvös Loránd University, and his colleagues to a prestigious journal of the Nature Publishing Group, the ancient system of production and consumption recovered at a startling speed due to the intense technological transfer launched from West to East. As a result,

the countries of Eastern and Central Europe have taken over leading positions in global cereal export rankings over the past decade.

Russia and Ukraine, the two main actors in the process, have together accounted for one-third of global grain exports in recent years. However, the current Russian invasion of Ukraine is significantly hindering global trade in basic foodstuffs, such as wheat and maize, as well as fertilizers, exacerbating the instability of the global food supply.

The climate sensitivity of grain production

As a result of the revealed processes, the north-eastern sector of the European grain chessboard seems to be the number one beneficiary of the recent transformations, where the low sensitivity of cereals to climate change accompanied by the greatest increase in GDP has produced the highest average yields of crops on the continent. The loser in the big regional transformation is the Mediterranean Region. The area of wheat and maize cultivation had decreased by 12 million hectares in the European part of the Mediterranean Region between 1961 and 2017. The diminishing of cereal fields forms part of a wider landscape transformation since nearly 19 million hectares of arable land have been abandoned in the region over the past 60 years.

Domestic groundwater resources are steadily decreasing in every region in Hungary

Subsoil water is an essential resource for agricultural production and natural vegetation. In the plains with high groundwater levels, the cultivated cereals may obtain even all the water they need from the soil moisture provided by subsoil water when there is no rain. Consequently,

declining groundwater levels represent a direct threat to food production.

In Hungary, barely 2% of arable fields and gardens are irrigated. In other words, almost all domestic crop production depends on precipitation and, in the absence thereof, on access to groundwater. Recently published research results revealed that the average depth of domestic groundwater dropped by more than half a metre throughout the country between 1961 and 2010, and decreased significantly in almost every region of Hungary. The extreme fluctuation of groundwater levels is connected to the intensity of droughts, which also affects Hungary’s most important agricultural product, the maize.

The rapidly increasing climate sensitivity of cereal production in Central Europe is a wake-up call for farmers in the region and actors responsible for global food security. There is an urgent need for a tangible solution that may also be perceived at the regional level to mitigate the negative effects of decreasing soil moisture and groundwater levels as well as rising temperatures.

The findings above have serious implications not only for Hungarian but also for global food security. At the moment, the question is how to ensure global food security, which is facing strong challenges due to the suspension of food exports from Eastern Europe because of blockades caused by the war conditions. The strongest connection between groundwater levels and maize yield can be seen in the southern part of the Great Hungarian Plain. This suggests that the uptake of water, which is essential for the development of grains, is predominantly offered by subsoil water in the southern region of the Great Hungarian Plain during the driest period. The dropping groundwater levels may have decreased the annual yield of grains by about 0.7 t/ha on average in the whole territory of the Great Hungarian Plain between 1986 and 2010.

The research also raises the question of tomorrow. Notably, cereal production has shown the greatest exposure to climate change in Central and Eastern Europe across the continent, a region where the grain-growing potential is identified to be one of the highest in the world.

The study is accessible at the following link: Climate change and modernization drive structural realignments in European grain production