KANALIA: Sitting in a small motorboat, farmer Babis Evangelinos glides over the land he once cultivated on the Thessalian plain in central Greece, the nearby trunks of his barren almond trees submerged by floodwaters.
His small plot of land, near Lake Karla, is among tens of thousands of acres of cotton fields, almond groves and pastures destroyed last year by unprecedented flooding in one of Greece’s key breadbaskets.
After five months, much of the area – and a lot of expensive equipment – remains underwater. In the shallow lake there is a pumping station designed to stop flooding. Pelicans and herons, previously uninterested in the parched plain, race overhead.
“I never imagined I would have to board a ship to see my country,” Evangelinos said as he drifted through his soaked trees. “Life’s work destroyed, gone in three, four days of rain.”
The situation has sparked anger among farmers who, like many in Europe, have found their livelihoods threatened by rising costs and climate change, and a headache for governments expected to foot the bill.
Farmers from India to France and Poland have taken to the streets in recent days to complain about competition from abroad, a lack of government support and low prices. Thousands of people converged on central Athens on Tuesday, calling for more help.
Greece was also hit by extreme weather. Forest fires ravaged the north last year and then Storm Daniel unleashed 18 months of rain in four days in September, raising questions about the Mediterranean country’s ability to cope with an increasingly erratic climate. It also offers a warning of what other countries further north may face in the future.
Daniel and another storm, Elias, flooded about 35,000 acres near Lake Karla in the Thessalian plain, representing 25% of Greece’s agricultural output and 5% of GDP. About 30,000 farmers were affected across the province.
Lake Karla was drained in the 1960s to increase agricultural land, and a small part of it has been restored in recent years, only 450-500 million cubic meters of water that rushed here during floods. The area near the lake has little artificial drainage, and HVA, the Dutch agricultural company hired by the government to assess the damage, said it could take up to two years for the water to recede.
Evangelinos had just picked a ton batch of almonds before the rain came and washed them away. Normally he would have expected 10 tons per season, worth about €20,000, but he managed only 40% of that. Now he’s not sure how he’ll pay for his two daughters’ college expenses.
“It’s very sad. Because the trees you see now are 20 and 30 years old, you grow them from a small branch.”
In response to farmers’ protests against rising costs, the Greek government offered rebates on electricity bills and extended a diesel tax rebate. It is unclear whether the government, which is cash-strapped after a decade-long financial crisis, will offer more.
In Thessaly, farmers have so far received 150 million euros ($162 million) in flood compensation. The government said another 110 million euros would come in July.
Many say they want more. Farmers from near Lake Karla took part in Wednesday’s protests in Athens. One tractor parked in the central square bore a sign that read: “Karla. 180,000 stremmas under water,” referring to the land measurement used in Greece. “We want our fields back.
Local authorities proposed speeding up recovery by using floating machines to pump out water as early as April in one area, Thessaly Governor Dimitris Kouretas said.
“Several thousand families live here. Do we want them to leave?” he said.
Some already do.
Vangelis Peristeropoulos, 35, a father of two, lost almost all of his 640 pigs and sheep in Stefanovikeio, another town near the lake. In November, he got a job as a truck driver in the port city of Volos to make ends meet.
“When we saw the disaster and that there was nothing we could do, we looked for other work because the expenses were still running.
Evangelinos remains in place for now. He says once the soil dries out, experts will have to analyze it to make sure it’s suitable for cultivation. He hopes to pull out the damaged trees and plant new ones.
“What I want is to step onto the muddy ground and start cultivating again.
