The Spanish countryside heads to the end of August exhausted after chaining a carousel of meteorological blows. First there were the rains, then the frosts, then the hail and, later, the extreme heat. In between, also the fires. For farmers and ranchers, this year is being an exercise in survival, since as soon as one farm begins to recover from a scare, the next one arrives. "The situation places our farms in extreme vulnerability. This is no longer a passing anomaly, but a structural crisis. The conditions for producing food today are completely different from those of our parents or grandparents," warns Cristóbal Cano, general secretary of the UPA agricultural association.
The magnitude of the crisis is reflected in the Agroseguro figures: 1.2 million hectares damaged until the end of July and compensation that already reaches 374 million euros. It is one of the highest figures on record for this period of the year, although still far from 2023, when a record of 1,241 million was paid in the entire year. The worrying thing is that the agricultural cycle has not ended. Campaigns as important for the sector as those for olive groves, citrus, persimmon or late northern vineyards are missing.
The insurance company recognizes the seriousness of the constant adversities. “In recent years, when it's not a dana it's a drought, and when it's not, it's a frost,” explains Sergio de Andrés Osorio, general director of Agroseguro. "Climate events are much more intense and extreme. We are not talking about an isolated catastrophic year, but rather about a growing and continuous trend that places us in the period of highest accumulated accidents in our history," he insists.
Behind the official figures are lost crops, broken infrastructure and depleted savings. “We need mechanisms so that the sector has a way to continue and that these serious losses do not mean abandoning crops or sending animals to the slaughterhouse because there is no food,” explains Isabel Vilalba Seivane, a livestock farmer in Galicia and member of the executive of the COAG organization.
The first three months of the year
The first blow came with the start of 2026. After several years of drought, the rains were necessary. But the Atlantic storms that crossed the Peninsula during January and February arrived with an intensity and continuity that put some of the most productive agricultural areas on the ropes. The soils could not absorb all the water and the drainage systems were overwhelmed.
In Huelva, the red fruit sector was one of the first to suffer the consequences. More than 11,650 hectares of strawberries and other products were damaged. Some 3,800 hectares were affected by flooding and excess water and another 2,100 by the wind, which destroyed macrotunnel and greenhouse structures.
The humidity suffocated the roots at the beginning of the commercial campaign. For a sector that depends on a short sales window and thousands of temporary workers, starting with a part of the lost production meant much more than a bad harvest. “Those first months of the year were meteorologically historic in terms of the violence of the storms,” points out Osorio, who adds that, “although many winter crops are not affected by water, in sectors of such sensitive value as strawberries, initial losses skyrocketed immediately.”
In March, sudden changes in temperature brought frost to much of the country. More than 56,650 hectares were affected. The blow was especially hard for crops that had already begun to flower. Stone fruit trees, such as peach and almond trees, were exposed just when they needed stable temperatures to bear fruit. In total, some 19,700 hectares of arable crops such as wheat or barley, and 12,800 hectares of nuts, especially almond trees, suffered damage from the extreme cold.
Hail in April and heat in June
April did not give rest with the hail. The first hail storms hit vineyards and fruit trees. And after weeks, the country went from frost to extreme heat. Thermometers exceeded 40 degrees in large areas of the country at a delicate time for crops. Cereal was the first to show a productive collapse. Castilla y León, Spain's main winter grain granary, closed the campaign with a drop of more than 45% compared to the previous year, due to the May heat suffocating the grain before maturing.
In Malaga, some winegrowers have calculated losses of more than 40% in the Muscat grape. In Extremadura, high temperatures coincided with tomato flowering, with a significant drop in yield per hectare. And in Jaén, the heat damaged the olive blossom in large areas of the province, just when the sector hoped that a good autumn and winter harvest would help leave behind several years marked by drought.
"Before, the harvesting of cereals took place a month apart between towns; today, we harvest everything at once due to the speed with which the grain matures with these heat strokes," explains Óscar Salazar, a farmer from La Rioja, who estimates a loss of 50% in his sunflower crop due to the drought.
Another summer of fires
Starting in June, high temperatures and lack of humidity changed the landscape again. The fires multiplied and, with them, the material damage. The fire has reached pastures, livestock farms, irrigation systems, machinery and other infrastructure necessary to maintain the farms. In total, damage to agricultural activities was recorded in more than 40 provinces.
Until August 17, Agroseguro had received shares corresponding to more than 15,800 agricultural hectares affected by the fires. It is, provisionally, the second highest figure in the last decade, only behind 2025, when 20,740 hectares burned. Most of the affected area – around 90% – corresponds to herbaceous crops, mainly winter cereal that had yet to be collected or stubble. But the flames have also reached vineyards, olive groves, citrus trees, nuts and livestock farms. A single example is enough to see the seriousness of the problem. In Castellón, the flames have devastated more than 2,000 productive hectares. The Asaja association estimates that the damage is around 35 or 40 million euros, both in crops and infrastructure.
Asphyxiation in fields due to heat is also affecting the health of animals through heat stress. "The cows tolerate the cold much better. But with this heat sustained over time, their defenses are lowered because they do not eat nutritious fresh grass. I have had diarrhea, outbreaks of bovine conjunctivitis spread by flies and rare cases of pedreros [bacterial ulcers on the hooves] that at first we feared were bluetongue," details María Osorio, a beef cow rancher in the Os Ancares region (Lugo).
Summer has opened another front in the north of the country. Galicia, Asturias, Cantabria, the Basque Country and the Cantabrian side of Navarra are going through a forage crisis. The heat of August, with maximums of between 35 and 40 degrees, added to the lack of rain, have left many beef farms without grass. Livestock farmers have had to draw on winter reserves early and face the cost of replacing them, in a market in which cereal straw has become 32% more expensive in just two months.
In Lugo and Ourense, losses of crops to feed livestock exceed 60%, according to Coag. “We have been drawing on winter reserves since mid-July because there is no grass in the meadows,” says Osorio. "This is the second consecutive year that this has happened to me. Supplementing the diet with forage that you have to buy outside, plus transportation, represents an unforeseen expense that seriously compromises the viability of the farms," he says.
The problem is widespread. In Asturias, forage corn registers decreases of between 60% and 80%, according to Coag. The lack of water is also directly affecting the supply of animals. In Cantabria and in some areas of Bizkaia it has been necessary to transport water to guarantee its consumption due to the reduction in river flow and the depletion of springs.
While the north dries up, the Mediterranean arc and the peninsular south suffer the scourge of hail. The August storms crushed fruit trees and vineyards ready for the harvest. The storm of August 20 alone devastated 25,000 hectares of crops in the Murcian highlands and Vega del Segura, according to UPA, and erased an entire year's work in minutes.
