The steep and stark environmental decline was not supposed to happen under the common agricultural policy
The Rhine overflowed last winter, covering fields miles from the river and in some places leaving just the tops of trees visible.
But Thomas Bollig, who farms just a few miles from the banks of the Rhine, was not worried. Even as floods inundated the fields of his neighbours, making sowing impossible, his holdings were largely unaffected. Bollig farms organically, and the natural methods he uses to improve his soil allow his fields to hold more water when it rains, and release it gradually, coping well with floods and droughts.
About Author
More Stories
Painstaking work to conserve Ireland’s oldest paper documents begins
At least 6,000 inmates escape Mozambique jail amid post-election riots
Trump tells 37 people on death row with commuted sentences to ‘go to hell’