Agricultural Drought Monitoring System in Poland—Farmers’ Assessments vs. Monitoring Results (2021)

The aim of this study is to compare the farmers’ viewpoint on agricultural drought with the results generated by the national Agricultural Drought Monitoring System (ADMS) in 2021. The authors attempted also to indicate effective methods of validating these results, which could serve as an objective tool of appeal made available to farmers as a part of an administrative procedure or directly included in the drought monitoring system, which, apart from soil and meteorological conditions, would take into account the actual condition of crops in the field. An analysis comparing farmers’ assessments with the ADMS results was presented for all (27,580 parcels) claims for compensation for losses in winter wheat crops submitted in the country. A detailed assessment of the impact of drought on yields was carried out for two pilot regions in the area most affected by agricultural drought in Poland (West Pomeranian Voivodeship, NUTS-2 PL42 region). The paper demonstrates a subjective assessment of incurred losses, performed by the farmers themselves. The difference between the “potential drought”—resulting from the meteorological and soil conditions—and the actual losses, which are also influenced by agro-technical factors, was indicated. The grounds for further development of the Agricultural Drought Monitoring System were the need to establish a method of estimating the impact of drought on crops, which will be based on unambiguous criteria and using high-resolution (temporal and spatial) remote sensing data.