Farmers in Greece, Spain, Romania, Czechia, and Poland explain why they are on the brink, financially and mentally.
Adina Florea is a freelance journalist specialising in labour migration, minority rights, and environmental issues in Eastern Europe.
Apolena Rychlíková Apolena Rychlíková is the editor-in-chief of the media project Page 404, the first slow journalism media outlet in the Czech Republic.
Corina Petridi is a data journalist based in Athens, currently working for the independent investigative outlet Solomon.
Elena Ledda is an independent journalist from Sardinia. She is professor of Engagement Journalism at the BCN_NY Master Degree in Journalism, and a journalism project manager.
Iliana Papangeli is the managing director of Solomon, an award-winning non-profit investigative outlet based in Greece that specializes in migration, corruption, and climate issues.
Paulina Olszanka is an Australian journalist covering Poland for The Times and The Sunday Times.
Cross-posted from Green European Journal
Tangled irrigation hoses stuck in the mud form a shapeless mass in some fields, others are strewn with stones. A heavy smell emanates from the canal. A goat carcass hangs from a tree. Everything looks out of place.
“I’m in the worst psychological state I’ve ever been in. I feel insecure, and I have debts,” says 30-year-old Maria Vardouli, one of a handful of female farmers in Thessaly, central Greece, known as the country’s “breadbasket”.
Vardouli hasn’t always been a farmer. She switched from physiotherapy in 2019, and has since been cultivating her father’s land, producing everything from legumes to spinach, industrial tomato, and cotton. Through a European program, she secured funding to invest in her business, on the condition that she must be employed exclusively in agriculture until 2027.
What she couldn’t foresee was how last year would turn out.
In September 2023, torrential rains hit central Greece, causing major flooding that submerged entire villages and destroyed crops and farm equipment. Almost 50,000 hectares have remained underwater since. Five months later, Vardouli’s fields were still covered in mud and debris.
After the floods, she experienced extreme stress and psychosomatic disorders. She is not alone. Insomnia, nightmares involving water and rain, and a feeling of despair were reported by most interviewed farmers following the floods.
Farms managed a little less than half (46.4 per cent) of the total land area of the EU in 2020, Eurostat says. As the impacts of climate change intensify across Europe, farmers are feeling the consequences.
For eight months, a team of six journalists delved into the impacts of climate change on farmers’ mental health in Greece, Spain, Romania, Czechia, and Poland, countries facing heightened vulnerability to environmental shifts. Compared to their counterparts in Western and Northern Europe, these countries are less equipped to handle the growing challenges of climate change.
Through interviews with over 50 farmers, as well as with mental health experts, climate specialists, and policymakers at both national and EU levels, and by analysing available data, the journalists pieced together a comprehensive picture. Their investigation unveiled a troubling reality: extreme weather patterns are taking a particularly devastating toll on farmers in Europe’s most vulnerable countries.
And national governments seem unwilling to address this troubling reality.
“Nobody can sustain this”
The man strikes the tree hard with a stick while a machine shakes it, causing olives to fall onto a net spread on the ground. “It’s good for stress,” he says when he’s done.
Ignacio Rojas, Nacho to friends, is a 46-year-old olive oil, cereal, and pistachio producer in Jaén, Andalusia. He manages Jaén’s international projects for COAG, the oldest professional agricultural organisation in Spain, and is a father to a seven-year-old.
Surrounded by olive trees in the farm his family bought some eighty years ago, under an imposing sun that makes the autumn morning temperature reach 16 degrees Celsius, Ignacio explains the severe impact of dry winters over the past five years.
“This year, I harvested only a third of my usual yield, which makes me anxious. I’ve tried to reduce water usage and mitigate bad harvests. So far, bank financing has helped, but I can’t endure another year like this.”
He says that climate change is the cherry on top of the cake, “because it adds uncertainty to an already uncertain financial situation.” It made “something that we had already been suffering from into a structural issue,” he adds.
“As olive growers, we have always dealt with a good harvest, followed by no harvest. Now, it turns out that we can’t produce for two years in a row, and it could soon be three. Nobody can sustain this,” says Ignacio.
Spain’s useful agricultural surface (SAU) represents almost half of the territory. But 75 per cent of the country’s land is at risk of desertification due to a combination of irregular rains, a significant increase in temperature, and mistreatment of soils and forests. Many regions of Spain are also suffering from “water stress”. Together with Catalonia, the southern region of Andalusia is the one most affected by drought.
Vanesa Pérez is a rural psychologist from Beas de Segura, also in Andalusia. She comes from a family of farmers, and so do most of her patients. She explains that, for them, no harvest or a storm can be an important stressor “that can enhance and accentuate the appearance of a mental disorder, an addiction.”
“They feel useless, and incapable of supporting their family. Not being able to foresee what is going to happen can lead to frustration, ‘learned helplessness’, and depression in anyone,” underlines Pérez.
Diana Ürge-Vorsatz, a professor of Environmental Science and Policy at Central European University (CEU) and Vice Chair of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), confirms that worldwide the Mediterranean “is one of the biggest losers when it comes to climate change.”
According to reports, the frequency and intensity of extreme phenomena in the region will increase the severity of mental issues.
Not just the Mediterranean
Across the five countries examined for this investigation, economic strains compounded by stringent EU regulations already have farmers living on a knife’s edge. The intensifying impacts of climate change arrive as a further burden, but it is farmers on the edges of Europe who are suffering the most.
Together, the five countries included in the investigation account for over half the gross value of the EU’s agricultural industry, yet they are the most vulnerable to climate change, and the effects it has on farmer mental health.
According to the Notre Dame Global Adaptation Initiative, which addresses 40 core indicators, these five countries rank among the worst in Europe in terms of vulnerability to climate change and readiness to improve resilience. Romania, for example, is classified as critically vulnerable in terms of fresh water supplies, ranking among the last countries in Europe; Greece’s government readiness ranks as the second-lowest in the EU, showing inertia on the side of authorities to prepare the country for climate calamity.
Farmers in the countries surveyed also have to deal with a critical lack of mental health support. In high-income European areas, researchers have documented the increased suicide risk among farmers, but this risk is often overlooked elsewhere in Europe.
In none of the countries studied was there government data available documenting psychological health in farming communities, nor were there specific programmes tailored to addressing their mental wellbeing. Reporters tried to interview labour, health, environment, and agriculture ministries in the countries of the investigation but had no success.
Interviewed farmers describe a world in which conversations around mental health are still taboo and support is found in the family, or in the broader community. But loosening ties due to migration from rural areas is putting them under increasing pressure. And nobody is stepping in to help.
According to the 2023 Synthesis Report by the IPCC, “climate change impacts on health are mediated through natural and human systems, including economic and social conditions and disruptions.”
Ürge-Vorsatz explains: “The impacts of climate change on our health, including our mental health, are mitigated by many things in between. For example, if you have access to subsidies or other economic support systems, then you will be less affected by extreme weather events, and so will your mental health. If you have a good healthcare system, this helps reduce the mental health impacts of climate change.”
“The droughts came one after another”
“I’ve been a farmer since the 1990s, but I can’t plant the land anymore. Last year, I told myself I can’t continue like this,” lamented 54-year-old Daniela Dîrîngă during farmer protests that took place throughout January 2024 in Afumati, near Bucharest.
The rallying cry of farmers stated: “The future of our children depends on our actions”. Farmers protest against climate change and what they see as a lack of support from the Romanian government and the EU.
In Romania, interviewed farmers said they face extreme droughts, delayed subsidies, high input costs, and collapsing grain prices due to liberalised imports from Ukraine. Dîrîngă and her sister Nicoleta Iancu cultivate 700 hectares with maize, wheat, sunflower seeds, and rapeseed in the south-eastern Romanian village of Ianca, Brăila County. They are among the large producers (owning more than 100 hectares) who control 48 per cent of the country’s farmland.
Romania’s agricultural output makes the country a major EU producer. But even large-scale farmers like Dîrîngă are now struggling under debt. Dănuț Andruș, a crop farmer and leader of the protests in Afumati, claimed that 30,000 farmers are facing bankruptcy in Romania.
Romania has 2.8 million farmers. Most live in poverty, with over half of poor households engaged in farming – a higher percentage than in any other EU country.
Recent years have been unbearable, recounts Daniela Dîrîngă. “The droughts came one after another. I reached my limit and fell into depression,” she says. She feels compelled to continue farming and hopes to be able to upgrade the irrigation system but faces challenges accessing EU rural development funds.
In Romania, rural development favours urban-adjacent and already well-developed areas, neglecting poorer regions with significant agricultural potential. Only 2.26 per cent of farmers obtained such funds in the last financial period.
In the -9 degrees Celsius of a Romanian winter day, it is not the cold that makes Daniela Dîrîngă’s hands shake as she recalls the devastation of seeing her crops wither in the 2022 summer heat: “I remember losing my breath. It’s like seeing your house burned to the ground.”
More stress caused by the EU?
Farmers interviewed in the five countries attributed their increased levels of stress to bureaucracy and stringent controls linked to accessing EU subsidies. They saw bureaucracy-related issues as detrimental to their mental health, and complained of more economic pressures brought on by climate regulations under the EU Green Deal.
The European Commission capitulated in March and announced it’s going to roll back some of the environmental objectives of the 2023-2027 Common Agricultural Policy (CAP).
The Commission introduced derogations to environmental standards that apply to farmers who receive agricultural subsidies under the CAP. Small farmers (two-thirds of all subsidy beneficiaries across the continent work on less than 10 hectares) will be exempted from controls and penalties.
The Commission’s decision came days after the European Environment Agency published its first climate risk assessment report, which states Europe “is the fastest-warming continent in the world.” The report notes that “climate risks are driven not only by increases in climate hazards but also by how prepared societies are for them” and declares that neither climate risks nor adaptation needs are adequately addressed by the EU’s policies related to food production, namely the CAP.
“Will I make it, will I cope?”
If it’s not outward devastation, it is the chaos of variable policies, climate patterns, and economic instability that dovetail to put increased pressure on farmers.
“I’ve already had one nervous breakdown,” says Maciej Mojzesowicz. “There are too many things happening at once.”
Mojzesowicz grows rapeseed, wheat, and beetroot on 130 hectares near Bydgoszcz, in northern Poland. He has grappled with deep depressive spells for the last decade after over-investing in a farm that has not always delivered.
Although he loves working the land – the smell of the dirt, the wheat, and the coming spring – he says that the variable climate and economy have made things impossible to manage. The well he had used to water his fields for 25 years is bone dry. In March, his wife threw a stone into it and it ricocheted off the bottom. A few years earlier, the same fields were flooded.
“We always had ups and downs, but eventually, we would come out on top. But now I have this nagging feeling: will I make it, will I cope? It’s like watching the needles tracing your heart rate going up and down.”
In 2023, his beetroot evaporated into a “pillow-like” consistency. Ninety per cent of wheat crops in his region failed because of the heat and lack of water. Then the glut of wheat and vegetable imports coming from a beleaguered Ukraine made it hard to get a good price for what was left of his crop.
According to Statistics Poland, the average price of wheat dropped by 28.5 per cent from 2022 to 2023. For Mojzesowicz, the drop was even bigger. “Usually, I get 280 euros per ton of wheat. Last year, I got 145 euros, while fertiliser costs 375 euros a ton. I am already 420,000 euros in debt. It’s one big sinusoid, all these variables. I can’t plan for anything,” laments Mojzesowicz.
“I haven’t burned out yet”
Looking out the car window, it looks more like spring than mid-winter in South Moravia.
“Formerly known as the most fertile region in Czechia, this place is changing beyond recognition. In terms of weather, every year we see events that were rarely experienced in the past two centuries,” says Professor Miroslav Trnka, leader of the Institute of Global Change Research at the Czech Academy of Sciences and professor at Mendel University in Brno. “In the past, we considered it virtually impossible to have 30 to 45 tropical days per year. Nowadays, this is the norm in the region,” adds Trnka.
Libor Kožnar, a 40-year-old organic farmer, works here – the most endangered agricultural region of Czechia. He started farming in 2017 after his mother’s passing made him decide to return home after a career in the United States. His 11-hectare property is a semi-subsistence farm. There are many farmers like Kožnar in Czechia. Though 86 per cent of the country’s farmland is owned by large agribusinesses, more than 55 per cent of the farmers are small-scale.
Moreover, according to Eurostat data, organic farms in the Czech Republic are on the rise. In 2022, they accounted for almost 16 per cent of the total number of farms.
All of Libor Kožnar’s work revolves around organic farming, and the emphasis on sustainability is key for him. Still, he sees the bureaucracy associated to receiving subsidies as “terribly inconvenient and extremely stressful.” Kožnar says he suffers from anxiety and fear because any mistake on his part could cost him access to the subsidies, and without them, his farm would not be able to operate.
Meanwhile, the land is quickly changing right before his eyes, bringing new challenges. But he is not giving up.
Kožnar wakes up at six in the morning, gets right on the computer, and checks his emails, he says. By seven, he’s in the field. He works sixteen hours a day, every day. When he comes back from the fields, he buries himself under contracts and documents needed to access subsidies. He goes to bed at midnight.
“But my mind is flooded with thoughts about all the things I have to do, what the weather will be like tomorrow, what can kill my crops. I can’t fall asleep. Usually, I have to go take a pill.” In his busy daily routine, the farmer can’t find time to maintain any social life, he claims. He lives alone. “But I haven’t burned out yet,” he adds proudly.
Farmers endure by building resilience
Just like Libor Kožnar and Greek physiotherapist-turned-farmer Maria Vardouli, Spanish olive oil producer Ignacio Rojas was active in a different field before taking over his family agriculture business. Until fourteen years ago, he was living in Madrid, working in the strategy department of a telecommunications company. Then his father got ill, and he decided to go back to his hometown and take over the family’s farm.
In the beginning, he dealt with some of the most common risk factors that farmers experience in terms of wellbeing: isolation and loneliness. For years, he faced sleep issues, digestion problems, and mood swings.
His personal experience, shared by farmers across Europe, pushed him to address these issues through FARMRes (Farmers Assistance Resources for Mental Resilience), an EU-funded project aiming to raise awareness of mental health issues among farmers and their families.
In Czechia, Libor Kožnar has found solace in sharing his concerns and solutions with other organic farmers. He emphasises the therapeutic benefits of community-supported agriculture, which involves urban consumers pre-paying for seasonal organic produce and sharing with the farmers both the harvest and challenges brought on by the climate.
He says that despite occasional stress about meeting expectations, he values the solidarity and community involvement it fosters.
This investigation is supported by Journalismfund Europe.
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