Response to interpellation 2022/23:352 on the risk of heatwave and drought coming summer

Landsbygdsministern Peter Kullgren (KD)

Madam Speaker! [The member] has asked me how the government is preparing and what preparedness exists for agriculture and forestry in the event of a warm and dry summer in 2023.

The risk of water shortages and drought has been repeatedly highlighted in recent years. Agriculture and forestry are probably the industries most affected by this, with major consequences for the companies involved and for society as a whole. During the summer, the Government will maintain ongoing contact with both the relevant authorities and the industry to monitor how the situation develops. Furthermore, the Government regularly receives forecasts for water availability via the Swedish Food Agency's office for national coordination of drinking water. The agricultural water needs are also covered by these reports.

During the dry summer of 2018, more forest burned than ever in modern times. The year 2018 was also the starting point for the ongoing outbreak of record-large damage to spruce forests caused by the spruce bark beetle. The damage decreased during last year, but another warm and dry summer means that the damage risks gaining renewed momentum. The Government is following the development closely.

Forecasts for the summer are still difficult to make in their entirety. But according to SMHI, there is a risk of a low-precipitation summer, with a risk of forest fires and drought in some parts of the country. Should it become a year of extreme drought again, it is important that we use the experiences that exist from previous years.

I am also very keen that we continue the work that is ongoing, partly at our agencies to develop preventive measures and counteract climate-related risks within both agriculture and forestry, and partly through the measures available, for example within the framework of the strategic plan for agriculture. It is important that we do not rest on our laurels but continue to work to strengthen preparedness and minimize the damage.

Since the interpellator reported that she was prevented from attending the meeting, the second deputy speaker granted that Tomas Kronståhl instead participated in the debate.

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Tomas Kronståhl (S)

Madam Speaker! Thank you, Minister for Rural Affairs Kullgren, for the answer! We have noted that the heatwave currently occurring has engaged you in press conferences and also on TV4 this morning. I have thus seen that Kullgren has observed that it is hot and that there is a lot of burning.

I want to begin by stating that in 2018 we had a heatwave and a large shortage of precipitation in all of Sweden, which also caused completely failed or very poor harvests. It led to many forest fires. It also led to a very tough situation for our farmers. It was very much about the emergency slaughter of animals due to the feed shortage. To top it all off, we also had the large spruce bark beetle outbreak.

It was both drier and warmer than normal, and what we can see now is well that we are heading in the same direction. I really hope that we get a change. But I think it is important that we now take with us what the previous government, the Social Democratic government, did then. Jordbruksverket was given a mandate to analyze the consequences of the extreme weather and provide proposals for measures ahead of upcoming similar periods. It did not take very long, for now we are there again.

To secure the food supply, the previous government presented an extra supplementary budget to support livestock owners in agriculture who had been affected by the drought in 2018. I believe, Madam Speaker, that it is at least as important to secure that support now. In many areas in Sweden, last year was also a drought year. There is thus not much in the barns, at least not in the southeastern parts or in the eastern parts of this country. It is quite empty in the barns there. This means a great impact on farmers and agricultural producers, which can actually also be mentally taxing.

We also achieved a fairly flexible application of the regulatory framework, and that was possible thanks to good cooperation between agriculture and the responsible authorities. I believe we should also now have a similar situation, where the government gives assignments to the County Administrative Board and also provides funds so that a simplification of the rules can be achieved and something that can actually support agriculture in this matter.

But we also need to do long-term things. The Minister for Rural Affairs' government rules together with the Sweden Democrats, and it has been established that the environmental budget will unfortunately be halved.

When it comes to climate change in both the short and long term, we will get more periods of heat and drought. The question is how the government intends to manage them in the long term. We really need to achieve a long-term transition of Swedish agriculture.

I would like the Minister to speak about and elaborate on what the government's plan is to manage this heatwave with drought and water shortages as a consequence this summer. I would also like the Minister to elaborate on how he views this work in the longer term, as we need to increase our supply capacity and secure irrigation possibilities in the long term.

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Daniel Bäckström (C)

Madam Speaker! I would like to thank the interpellor for the interpellation on this extremely important issue. It was written quite early, in May, based on how the forecasts already looked then. It demonstrates the importance of being forward-looking, and I feel that the fellow member of the Social Democrats has been by submitting this interpellation. One has also been forward-looking based on the lessons from 2018 but also the years thereafter. I would also like to thank the Minister for Rural Affairs for the response.

It is clear that the situation is extremely concerning, and I believe that everyone who sees how things look out in the forests and on the land shares this view. Therefore, it is urgent to take effective measures in a timely manner.

It is good that the government and the Minister for Rural Affairs are following the issue and engaging in dialogue with the industry, which has been communicated. We know that this is ongoing.

What does the dialogue look like with the EU Commission regarding an expanded possibility for support to Swedish agriculture and obtaining a group exemption? And what does the dialogue look like with the agency Jordbruksverket to enable preparations so that these possible extra supports are paid out to the industry? What we saw after the 2018 drought is that the supports in many cases arrived very late. It is a lesson that we all need to take with us to ensure that future possible measures have a rapid effect.

From the perspective that it is a liquidity problem, the cost increases have looked different during the pandemic and during the inflation period, which is still ongoing but which started extra early for Swedish primary production. But now we see that the revenue side is being affected, not least for milk production. The settlement price is significantly lower this year than last year. This has dramatic effects for the liquidity of many milk producers. It is also the case in other industries.

Crop growers now risk having their entire harvest destroyed because it is impossible to harvest or because they harvest it to obtain roughage. These are enormous consequences that can affect a number of different actors and active entrepreneurs within Sweden's green industry.

We in the Center Party were involved in 2018 and worked hard to secure the national firefighting resources linked to aviation, but we were also involved in the follow-up so that we secured readiness with helicopter capability. We have seen that it has had an enormously great significance this year, but also last year and the year before that. Perhaps we also need more of this. In that regard, it is also interesting to know if there is a collective dialogue with the Armed Forces and other agencies that have infrastructure for firefighting resources to be able to act quickly in this difficult security policy situation to enable the extinguishing of large-scale fires across the entire country.

Just like the previous speaker, I believe that we have seen the beginning of a very difficult trial for our country this summer. It is a difficult trial for the green industry, for forest owners and for livestock farmers who do not have feed or pastures. It is difficult for them to foresee if the companies will still exist when we approach the turn of the year. These are major issues in light of the fact that the government has also initiated a review of the food strategy, according to which we are to increase production.

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Ulrika Heie (C)

Madam Speaker! I thank the Minister for the answers to the important questions that have been raised. It is clear that this is an extremely urgent issue.

During the previous parliamentary term, a report was presented in the Committee on Environment and Agriculture concerning the resilience of agriculture. This was examined in the short term, but above all in the long term.

There are many different questions for the Minister to answer, both the security policy and economic ones, but also those for the industry as a whole, the important questions about robustness.

Many of us also remember the crisis in the 2000s linked to the pig industry. There have been a number of crises for Swedish food production during the 2000s. In that case, it becomes extremely interesting to still pose the question of what the government, which is now starting to get warmed up, intends to do both in the short and in the long term, obviously linked to the crisis situation that we find ourselves in right now. But we also know that not least the industry is requesting in what way one creates this robustness also in a somewhat longer term.

Then it is incredibly important that what we do in the short term does not hinder what we want to do in the long term.

I am therefore extremely eager to receive the Minister's picture of in what way one can be agile and do what is needed now so that Swedish food production is not shot into the ground as we see the queues to the slaughterhouses increasing. Colleague Bäckström also mentioned how grain becomes roughage and so on. It is therefore extremely important to have the quick answers. And I know that some have arrived. But it feels extremely important in today's debate to hear what will be done both in the short and in the long term.

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Landsbygdsministern Peter Kullgren (KD)

Madam Speaker! I would like to begin by expressing regret that the debate on this issue did not take place at the previous occasion when it was scheduled to occur. A great deal of things have happened since then. The situation, regarding not least the drought, has worsened.

Even though we have not had a debate here in the chamber on these issues, I can guarantee that the work has continued nonetheless, not least at the relevant authorities. We have now established a continuous dialogue – we always have a dialogue – specifically for these issues. At the ministry, we have a special working group, task force, which is responsible for ensuring daily that they have the situational picture ready. It is important that we closely follow the developments in dialogue with the authorities but not least with the farmers directly in this case, primarily through LRF, and that we try to get a common picture of what needs to be done in any given situation.

One also has a readiness and preparation to be able to scale up efforts, frequency of meetings and so on, which is important. I feel secure with the basic structure and how we work and that the state in all its parts is on its toes and that the industry itself is also on its toes.

I may not have time to answer all the questions now. But there are more opportunities in later entries.

Earlier this week, I had the great pleasure of welcoming the EU's agriculture ministers to Sweden. We took the opportunity to go out very much. It was very pleasant that the weather was good. But naturally, there was much discussion about the dry nature they saw. Also at this meeting was the agriculture commissioner Wojciechowski. I naturally took the opportunity to have conversations about the situation in Europe as a whole. We talked about the fact that the commission is now quick if member states come in with requests for exemptions for whatever it may be. At this meeting, we received confirmation that it will happen. We also talked about the agricultural reserve that exists. It is not enormous amounts of money, but the commissioner says that it shall be decided that what exists now will be activated and paid out.

We have, as we have said, an ongoing dialogue with the Swedish Board of Agriculture. Yesterday, I and Civil Defence Minister Carl-Oskar Bohlin had a press briefing where we reviewed the situation and could confirm that capabilities have been strengthened since 2018. There is a dialogue with all actors in society. Even though firefighting is primarily a municipal matter, we did see deficiencies in coordination during 2018, and there we have strengthened the resources so that we can have better coordination.

Of course, there is also a dialogue with the Ministry of Defence and the Swedish Armed Forces about the fact that they need to be on their toes and prepared to help. This naturally also applies to the Swedish Civil Contingencies Agency, which has parts in this.

Another important part when talking about drought is the drinking water. As early as in April, I have an annually recurring meeting with SMHI and Livsmedelsverket to try to get a picture of what the water situation looks like regarding groundwater levels and so on.

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Tomas Kronståhl (S)

Madam Speaker! Thank you for the answer, Minister Kullgren, even though you did not answer my specific questions very much! But you may perhaps get more opportunities, so we can hope that the answers will come later.

As we were discussing, climate change leads to heatwaves, droughts and other things, that is to say, extreme weather. This leads, as we all know, to ideal conditions for forest fires, and as we see, the fires are becoming both more frequent and larger. They in turn also fuel the climate changes that we are all worried about. The researchers agree that it is climate change that is the cause of much of the extreme weather we now see in the form of heatwaves, droughts and increased storms.

As a forestry worker or forest owner, one can reduce the risks of fire in one's forest considerably by preparing, following fire risk warnings, and adapting one's activities accordingly. We also saw during the crisis in 2018 that very many farmers and forest owners filled their manure tanks with water and helped with firefighting in various ways, and it is naturally important to encourage such activities this time as well.

As mentioned in Malin Larsson's interpellation, it can already be seen how the number of spruce bark beetles is increasing in the traps and that there is already a great concern ahead of the summer. If it becomes dry and warm, which it seems it will, it favors the spruce bark beetles, which are now also spreading further north in the country. I believe that the major problem will extend a bit further north than it did last time.

This causes great damage to our managed forests. Just for the sake of comparison, it can be stated that approximately 32 million cubic meters of spruce have been cut down or killed due to the spruce bark beetles, and that it was 2 million cubic meters of forest that was lost during the forest fires in 2018. Then one understands how great a damage this insect causes.

The appropriation for nature management that the previous government had has now been cut. I think that is very unfortunate considering that it was an appropriation that was used to a very large extent to prevent, inform about, and take care of precisely bark beetle infestations and other things.

In his answer, the Minister for Rural Affairs says that the government is following the developments very closely, but the question is how one has prepared and how one intends to prepare for the heat that may come this summer. This concerns both preparations to manage spruce bark beetle infestations, forest fires and other matters, and preparations to manage severely reduced harvests for our farmers.

On June 8, we had a press conference from the Social Democrats' side. They want an action plan from the government, a general preparedness plan and an updated climate adaptation strategy - as well as increased resources for the county administrative boards, not least to give them opportunities to support the farmers. How does the minister view these demands?

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Daniel Bäckström (C)

Madam Speaker! It is good that there is a task force within the department of Minister for Rural Affairs Peter Kullgren, but the interesting thing is whether it will result in a concrete preparedness plan that accounts for the worst-case scenario. Because that is what we must take with us: What is the worst imaginable scenario?

It concerns both from a forestry perspective, i.e., the forestry industry as a whole, and from the primary production. There, it is about livestock farming, grazing issues and the follow-up effects for coming years. We see, in fact, that individual agricultural entrepreneurs are still amortizing loans that were taken out to cope with the drought in 2018, and it has thus been five years since then. It has also been quite tough years.

It is good that there are funds in the agricultural reserve. But remember that the loss of income for the industry amounted to 6.2 billion kronor in 2018 and that a total of 1.5 billion kronor was paid out. In the reserve referred to, there is, as I understand it, a possibility of 130 million kronor, and then one can begin to compare what the marginal effects will be per farming unit or production unit in the form of support. Therefore, it is important to get the group exemption in place early so that the Swedish state gets the mandate to pay out state aid to manage this.

We want to see a drought support guarantee. We also want the government to enable an earlier payment of the already granted supports to the industry. This applies from a liquidity perspective; then we must also have preparedness to tackle the consequences next spring, which will also have follow-on effects for liquidity.

These are, therefore, some perspectives. It would be interesting to hear more about the Minister's preparedness plan. Thank you for the debate!

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Ulrika Heie (C)

Madam Speaker! Forgive me, but I was almost a little provoked when the Minister said it was good weather when the ministers were here, because it was indeed catastrophic weather for the sake of agriculture. But I understand that a lull and sunshine is good weather when it comes to entertaining guests, even if it is obviously bad for Swedish agriculture right now.

I would like to repeat my question linked to this in the short term – I mentioned both the short term and the long term, as well as resilience, in my opening remarks. The Minister speaks about daily meetings, and that sounds very good. But what operational readiness is linked to these daily meetings? What is, like, the action plan?

I think it is something that the industry is very interested in. It is little comforted by daily meetings, even though I understand that one needs to follow this in that way. When is it time to act? Does the minister see that he will be able to give clearer information to the industry in the near future so that it can have confidence that there will be an opportunity for support?

Colleague Bäckström just mentioned that it cost the industry 6 billion and that it received 1.5 billion from the support that existed. It is clear that there should be robustness and an opportunity for an industry to meet both ups and downs, but when is the time to act, Minister? Is there a reason, even though one is now in a new program for the whole thing, to review what investment opportunities one will be able to contribute with to climate-proof Swedish agriculture moving forward? Are there plans for measures to be taken there? After all, so much time is spent on daily meetings and on creating opportunities for that.

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Landsbygdsministern Peter Kullgren (KD)

Madam Speaker! What the member described was exactly my intention with the reference to the weather - I hope it was noted that it was precisely this I meant.

I thought I would start with the robustness, which was taken up here earlier. I thought I would start a bit more long-term and then try to come down to the more concrete here-and-now questions.

It is absolutely crucial that we have a strong agriculture and agricultural companies that have profitability. The profitability in turn makes it possible to invest in one's business and secure one's business.

Just as the vice chairman of LRF said in the media today, we will probably need to get used to the fact that sometimes it is dry and sometimes it is too wet. We need to be able to equip our lands both for irrigation and with ditches to drain away water when we are in those situations. The key is that we have a strong agriculture with good profitability so that one can invest in one's business. There is no doubt about this, and I believe there is full agreement that it is the key to increased robustness.

The same applies to forestry. Well-managed forests, forests with good forest roads and cleared forests provide good conditions for being able to manage forest fires earlier. We know that it is burning in several places in Sweden already now. I want to take the opportunity to send a tribute to all those – many times farmers – who are now stepping up with their manure tanks, driving around on the forest roads and spraying water. Without them, it would be a much worse situation. The farming collective – if I may say so – sees what is happening and helps out everywhere they can. This is absolutely crucial and fundamentally very fine.

One can already now call several people in my department "readiness generals" if one wishes. One can also complain as much as one wants about the fact that we have daily meetings or about the fact that I happened to call the special group with this responsibility a task force. If we did not have daily meetings, I would probably receive criticism for that. The basis for having a readiness is that one has a consolidated picture of the situation and is constantly updated, so that one can act quickly on various things that happen.

When is it time to act? We have already started doing that, so it is not a question of when. We have already acted. We have had a dialogue with the Swedish Board of Agriculture, which has issued press releases regarding several different measures that are de facto already being taken so that it is possible to bring in crops that normally would not be harvested. Even the industry itself says that this is the most primary issue now, and I understand that. It is obviously incredibly frustrating if there is fodder left in the fields that one is not allowed to harvest and if one has to send the animals to slaughter too early. So we shall not have that – we will ensure that these exemptions are granted.

The dialogue with the commission is important here. It is a matter of ensuring that this work and that which concerns the commission also proceeds quickly, so that we get a decision on it.

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Tomas Kronståhl (S)

Madam Speaker! I thank Minister Kullgren for a good debate once again. Even though I have not received answers to all my questions, I see that there is a great interest in working with this. I want to conclude this debate with a small parting word.

I was the chairman of the municipal executive board in Västervik during the drought in 2018. We belonged to one of the areas that were very severely affected then. At that time, we as a municipality tried to guarantee that we would purchase meat if it were to come to the point where people were forced into emergency slaughter or early slaughter. We also tried, Madam Speaker, to ensure that we had more meat on the menu for schools and the elderly to ensure that what was unfortunately about to go wrong was truly mitigated. I think it is good to encourage this from the government's side. It is always important to send such signals.

The economic contributions are important; we heard from previous speakers what economic loss it will be for many. It is also a matter of achieving good cooperation between authorities - both county administrative boards and municipalities - and farmers to achieve a somewhat faster organization and utilize what can be utilized, for example when it comes to better irrigation opportunities and that one can use land that perhaps should not be cultivated in normal cases.

I would therefore like to thank you for the debate.

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Landsbygdsministern Peter Kullgren (KD)

Madam Speaker! We can observe that the possibility of a normal harvest has already passed. Many farmers have invested more money than in previous years in establishing this year's crops due to high prices on inputs over the past year. It is important to be clear: There is a risk that this year will be as bad as 2018.

I nevertheless want to conclude with an image of the proactive spirit that exists in our rural areas among those active in all our green industries. A farmer who was present during both the large forest fire in 2014 and the fires in Sala in 2018 has invented a loading ramp that can transform a forwarder into an all-terrain fire truck in a quarter of an hour. During the informal ministerial meeting this week, he was present on-site and demonstrated the concept to the EU's agriculture ministers with an accompanying delegation.

I promise that we will follow this development closely and, if necessary, lead the work to resolve the situations that arise.

The interpellations debate was hereby concluded.

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