Growing melons in Vienna: Climate change is altering Europe's farming

Rising temperatures and increasing periods of drought are having a heavy impact on Europe's agriculture. In Austria, some farmers are even thinking about planting melons – formerly unthinkable in the Alpine republic. 

Because of rising temperatures, Josef Peck's tomatoes stopped growing... so the Viennese vegetable grower decided to install shade cloths and even painted his greenhouse roof white "so that the heat is not too high," he tells CGTN.

Peck, who runs greenhouses just outside the Austrian capital, has started this year to use new varieties suitable for the stronger summers. 

"We try tomatoes from countries like Israel or south Italy which are more resistant to the heat," Peck says.

The European Union's agricultural sector currently loses more than $23 billion a year due to adverse weather such as droughts. That's around six percent of total crop and livestock production, but by mid-century that share is set to rise to a disastrous 66 percent.

"In future, farmers will have to rethink their jobs because they might need to alter their crops and think of other ways to supply their plants with water," says Theresa Schellander-Gorgas who researches climate-change-induced effects at Geosphere Austria.

But it's not just water scarcity that threatens Europe's farmers. The heat also favours infestation by pests – which Peck is trying to fight with beneficial insects like ichneumon wasps.

But it's not all bad news. He says climate change is leading to some short-term positive developments – at least in previously colder climates like the Austrian one.

"Maybe at the moment it's a little bit an advantage," Peck tells CGTN. "We can now grow new varieties, for instance melons, and we try to grow ginger, which was not possible five years ago."

While farmers can learn to adjust their crops – an ongoing embodiment of the old positive thinking that 'when life gives you lemons, make lemonade' – they are still threatened by other manifestations of climate change such as hailstorms and flooding. Agriculture, one of humanity's oldest and most vital practices, could soon be changing more rapidly than at any time in history.