The situation has now improved enough, however, that the silage pits have started to be filled up.

The harvesting of the crop, mainly fed to livestock, is now underway, as is the potato planting season, albeit a couple of weeks later than usual.

This makes it peak time for harvesting forage grasses at the Väätsa Agro collective in Järva County, whose agronomist, Kert Kiis, said that only rainy weather could slow things down.

"Grass growth was poor at first, there were night frosts that inhibited the growth of the grass cover. But the past few weeks have been warm, with warm nights, and that has made the grass grow well," Kiis told ERR.

Thirteen men and machines went to mow the meadow in Väätsa (see gallery) when ERR visited; raking it into rows, collecting the wilted grass, transporting it to the silage pit, where it is tightly compacted.

Kiis said: "This is the first harvest. Normally we get 1,700 hectares, which is definitely a bit more than the average farmer. This takes us two to three weeks to do."

Since potatoes are being planted a little later thanks to the cold spring, their harvest will also be delayed. Nevertheless, Järva County's largest potato grower, Osa ja Tervik, hopes to bring potatoes early to market, as early as mid-July.

Margo Heinmaa, manager and owner of Osa ja Tervik, said: "This year we started two weeks later than usual – the spring was cold and there was a lot to do in the storage, that's why we began later. We have usually planted a hundred hectares of potatoes, this year we're cutting back a bit. One factor is demand, another is equipment and manpower, we just don't have the capacity, let's put it that way."

While the winter crops sown in autumn survived the winter well on Väätsa Agro's fields, germination of those sown in spring, including corn (as in maize), took more time than usual.

Kiis said: "The spring plantings were done early enough, but they sprouted later than usual. The cereals were waiting for it to warm up, and so was the corn. We sowed about a week and a half later than usual and now the corn has just come up."

Last year's silage harvest was plentiful thanks to both a warm spring and rainy early summer, which also led to berry picking season arriving unusually early. The preceding spring, 2023, was particularly cold and dry, to the extent that the government even declared an emergency situation in agriculture that summer.

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