July started with storms in various parts of Spain, with particularly strong ones in the area of Mequinenza. So much so, in fact, that the town council has requested the declaration of a catastrophe due to the hail and storm damage that occurred in the early hours of July 1.
According to the town council, "there were wind gusts blowing at over 100 km/h and a heavy hailstorm that destroyed crops and caused significant damage to infrastructure. 4,000 hectares are estimated to have been affected, and in a quarter of those, 100% of the crops have been damaged." In many cases, these crops will be irrecoverable.
José Manuel Roche, of Asaja Aragón, confirms the seriousness of the damage to agricultural infrastructure, vehicles and roads caused by the strong winds and hail, in an area that had already been severely affected by the drought. "There has been a lot of damage to almond and olive crops, which had yet to be harvested, and to fruit trees, whose harvest was at an advanced stage. Fruit that was still on the trees has also been affected."
Antonio Sanjuán, mayor of Mequinenza, said in a press release that the impact of the storm has been really significant. "Some farms won't be able to continue, and that is what we need to avoid." He stressed that the damage is "so significant that the consequences may be felt for several seasons."
For all these reasons, the Mequinenza Town Council unanimously agreed in an extraordinary plenary session to request the area to be declared as an Area Seriously Affected by a Civil Protection Emergency (ZAEPC), as well as the implementation of lines of aid to repair the damage to farms, preferential loan lines, subsidies to deal with the damage caused to municipal infrastructures and tax exemptions. Agroseguro has also been asked to expedite, as far as possible, the appraisals and the payment of the corresponding compensations.
It is worth recalling that in 2023, Agroseguro had to pay 258 million euros in compensations because of the impact of hail storms, with 592,083 insured agricultural hectares affected. These were the highest figures since 2018, a year in which, according to the entity, "heavy hail storms were recorded on 215 days of the year, and consecutively for 88 days between May 3 and July 29." In fact, the year 2023 brought a combination of "the most severe drought in the history of agricultural insurance with one of the worst hail incidents since the insurer's creation in 1980."