No water, no life

Jovan Tripković, from the village of Donje Leskovice, spreading on the slopes of Povlen mountain, has been feeding himself and his family from agriculture all his life. The same did his parents - Radovan and Dragana, but his sons have already decided to live in Valjevo. Where there is no water, there is no life. The village of Leskovice does not have its own rivers, and Donje Leskovice has been a particularly waterless area in recent years, so the locals are figuring out how to water their fields and provide enough water for their cattle and themselves. Jovan says: "Weather and climate have unfavorably changed. It is very hard to provide enough food and water for a large number of livestock. It seems to me that the problem of drought is not taken seriously, and the situation is serious. Not only the production is declining, both in livestock and fruit growing, but also young people, due to difficult living conditions, are leaving the village; and there is no one left to engage in agriculture." The locals solve the lack of water in various ways: "We take water for cattle and blackberries from a pond that is a few kilometers away from here and which is filled naturally sourced. The problem is that this whole area has no water, so this small accumulation is not enough for all of us – in the summer, we often have to go to further springs. Everyday life is difficult for us, because we either bring water for household needs with a cistern from another source, which is very far away; or we buy it from the city water supply, which is expensive. All people in the village share the same problem, and some are in a more difficult situation than our is. When you walk through this area, in front of every other house you can spot smaller or larger cisterns, water tanks. "

His wife Slavica confirms his notions: "On Thursday, we get water from the public water supply, which we use only for household needs. Even then, it often happens that the pressure is very low. We are on duty all day and night so that we can fill the cistern a little. Sometimes I wonder if it would be better to shut down production totally; because the problem is big, and we don't know if we will ever solve it." Radovan adds: "I wanted to give an advertisement for donating a half of my sheep herd. No water, no food for them, just work and toil. I hooked up a cistern and thought about where to go to water the cattle; not to mention that, when I finish all the work tonight, I can't take a proper bath before I go to bed! Either the cattle should drink or I should bathe - both can't be done! "

In the last three years, they have halved the number of cattle they keep, and in the next three years, they will reduce them by as much as 90% compared to 2018. Perennial droughts change not only the number, but also the structure of the herd that is kept. Since the pastures and meadows are getting worse, the transition is made: from cattle to sheep keeping. High temperatures and hot winds lead to drying of plants, so the amount of harvest is constantly decreasing, and low prices and bad conditions additionally cause less planting: blackberries, raspberries, corn and all traditionally grown crops in these areas.

The problem of Tripković and Donje Leskovice is not isolated, and it is shared by many other farmers throughout Serbia. They often feel as if they are alone in the fight against climate change and the weather conditions they bring, while at the same time they are aware that they cannot solve the problem only by local action. Jovan also states that the villagers organized among themselves to pay for the expansion of the reservoir from which all of them take water, so they increased its capacity, but that was not enough. "We can't do much by ourselves, we need the support of the city, the state and the institutions, to solve the problems and mitigate the impact of the drought at least a little bit", says Jovan.

Farmers are not and cannot be left to defend alone in the fight against the climate changes. Therefore, the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO), under the funding of the European Union, has launched the project "Strengthening the resilience of the agricultural sector to natural disasters." In cooperation with the Ministry of Agriculture, Forestry and Water Management, local self-government units and agricultural advisory services, support will be provided to farmers to overcome some of the existing problems caused by the climate change, reduce risks in their production and adapt it to new conditions.