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Drought does not discriminate between continents, borders, or people. The effects of the climate crisis have brought together the lives of people thousands of kilometers apart in a shared fate.
Daniel Hausman, who lives in the state of Saxony in northwestern Germany, and Mahmud Salih, from the Germiyan region of the Iraqi Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG), experienced the same disaster without ever meeting each other: They lost half of their agricultural production within five years.
Blond and blue-eyed, 33-year-old German farmer Daniel Hausman stands in the faded greenery of his 240-acre farm in the town of Rochlitz, Saxony. Of average height, slender build, and a quiet observer, Daniel has been steadfastly holding onto the land he inherited from his father for the past 10 years. However, he too feels powerless in the face of climate change. Half of his crops have been lost to drought or unexpected natural disasters.
“May Is the Toughest Month”: A Shared Concern for Two Farmers
“May is the hardest month for us because there’s very little rain,” says Daniel, scanning the increasingly sparse rows of crops on his farm. “Everything we grow is slipping through our fingers.”
Thousands of kilometers away, in the village of Nasaleh in the Kifri district of the Germiyan administrative unit in Iraqi Kurdistan, 72-year-old Kurdish farmer Mahmud Salih expresses similar concerns. In the dusty wheat fields, he shares the same climate-related struggles with his younger colleague Daniel, whom he has never met.
“If the rain is good, our village produces 80 to 100 tons of wheat a year,” Salih says, adding, “But some years that number drops to zero; drought destroys everything.”
Despite the 4,463 kilometers, different religions, nationalities, and continents separating them, Daniel and Mahmud’s paths converge at the same point: the devastating effects of climate change on agriculture.
Soil Loss on a Global Scale
Scientific data also confirms the farmers’ concerns.
According to a 2015 study by the Grantham Centre for Climate Change and the Environment at the University of Sheffield, 33 percent of the world’s agricultural land has been lost in the last 40 years. This situation is a harbinger of a global food security crisis that threatens not only farmers but all of humanity.
Europe is not immune: Germany is fighting drought
The effects of the global food crisis are threatening even industrialized European countries known for their strong infrastructure and environmental policies. Germany is one of the countries most affected by this threat.
The German Ministry of Agriculture, Food, and Society issued a grim statement on May 15, 2025, announcing that climate change is seriously affecting the agricultural sector. The statement specifically warned that the year would be dry and rainless in the states of North Rhine-Westphalia and Saxony-Brandenburg.
The reality on the ground is made clear by the daily struggles of farmers like Daniel. Daniel Hausman, who runs a 240-acre farm in the town of Rochlitz in Saxony, grows over 60 varieties of vegetables, as well as wheat and barley. He is one of the farmers directly paying the price for changing weather conditions.
“The impact of climate change on my crops is very clear,” says Daniel, continuing:
“Low winter temperatures increase insects and bacteria, while high summer temperatures scorch the soil. Last season, I lost 50% of my farm’s yield.”
Daniel is trying to survive by adapting to the changing conditions. He now only grows heat-resistant crops like tomatoes, peppers, and eggplants during the summer; cabbage, beets, wheat, and barley are reserved for the rainy seasons. This is not a choice but a necessary “survival agriculture” developed in response to the climate crisis.
However, Daniel’s story is not unique. Rochlitz’s total agricultural area of 13,973 acres is considered critical for regional food security. Many farmers working on these lands are engaged in a similar struggle for survival.
Experts assessing the situation from a broader perspective are also concerned. Dr. Madiha Sofi, an environmental scientist with a master’s degree and a PhD in energy and water security from the University of Bonn, has been closely monitoring climate change data in Germany for years.
Climate Crisis: A Silent Disaster with No Borders
“No corner of the world is immune to climate change,” says environmental scientist Dr. Madiha Sofi. According to Sofi, who shared her observations from Germany, the most evident signs of the climate crisis in the country are weeks-long heatwaves and rivers with declining water levels, particularly the Rhine River.
“Temperatures ranging from 30 to 37 degrees Celsius lasting 14 to 20 days have become the norm. Additionally, there has been a significant decrease in summer rainfall,” Sofi says, noting that vineyards have been severely affected by drought, which directly threatens Germany’s wine industry.
However, the warnings are not limited to the agricultural sector.
“This is not just an environmental crisis, but also an economic and demographic one,” said Dr. Sofi, issuing this critical warning:
“We are on the brink of an era of environmental migration. As conditions worsen, people will migrate en masse to more livable places. This will create new pressures in the areas of housing, inflation, and security.”
Mahmud Salih, who supports his family of six by growing wheat and barley, describes the agricultural collapse as follows:
“Ten years ago, there were 8,000 to 9,000 animals in our village. Now there are almost none left.”
The drying up of the village’s only water well is a symbol of both the agricultural and social collapse.
The government is now forced to transport drinking water to Nasaleh village through pipes.
Mawloud Mohammed, Director of Agriculture in the nearby district of Kifri, summarizes the situation even more clearly:
“There are a total of 1.4 million acres of agricultural land in Germiyan. However, due to the effects of climate change, the population in some villages has decreased by 40 percent. This is because agriculture is no longer sustainable.”
Since the financial crisis began in the Kurdistan Regional Government in 2013, support for farmers has almost completely stopped. “We haven’t been able to provide meaningful assistance to farmers since 2014,” says Muhammed.
Dr. Sofi concludes by emphasizing that the climate crisis also threatens national security:
“When water disappears, national security disappears. Without water, there is no agriculture, no food. People don’t stay. Villages die. Society disintegrates. This is not just an environmental issue, it is an existential one.”
The stories of Daniel and Mahmud prove that climate change is no longer a scenario for the future; it is their present reality.
Though they live on different continents, their daily struggles are tied to the same invisible crisis: the climate crisis advancing amid the silent winds echoing across drying lands.
A collective awakening is now needed to confront this silent crisis, and it seems the world is speaking the same language: loss, adaptation, and urgent need.
