July 27, 2012

Serbia's Vojvodina corn harvest down 70% due to drought

Serbia's northern region Vojvodina's corn crops are hardly affected by the drought and scorching temperatures with yields reduced by as much as 70% this year, Joint Alliance of Vojvodina official Jelena Nestorov-Bizonj has said, ANSAmed reported.

"We have requested that the Vojvodina Agriculture Office declare a natural disaster and compose a list of relief measures, chiefly for individual farms and collectives, which have sustained enormous damages," Nestorov-Bizonj told.

She said that farmers required urgent aid as the effect on yields would be enormous, plus the fact that most farms had taken out loans in the previous sowing season, which will render them incapable of paying their obligations and so endanger next year's production.