Wild weather patterns hitting summer crops hard across Greece

A destructive combination excessive rainfall and extremes of heat and cold has caused tremendous damage to many crops across Greece this summer. "How can the trees handle temperatures going from 40 degrees Celsius down to 14C within just two days? We have air conditioning - they don't," the president of the Imathia Farmers' Cooperative, Christos Giannakakis, said to Kathimerini.

Farmer-members of the cooperative in the Western Macedonia region of northern Greece primarily grow peaches and cherries. Meanwhile in Attica, grapevines and other crops were severely affected by a heat wave that hit earlier in the summer.

Farmers say weather patterns in recent years have been unprecedented and blame climate change. The Greek Agricultural Insurance Organization (ELGA) is unable to pay for all the crop damage farmers across the country have sustained. "We ask to be...