The State Secretary at the Agriculture Ministry, Zdravko Tusek, and Krapina-Zagorje County head Zeljko Kolar on Tuesday visited Poznanovec in Bedekovcina municipality, which on Monday was hit by a hailstorm that caused extensive damage to crops, facilities and infrastructure.

Tusek said that the storm is believed to have destroyed 60-100% of local crops and vineyards.

He recalled that last week the government made a decision to secure funds to compensate farmers in six counties for the damage caused to their crops by a recent hailstorm and that an increase in the funds was being considered.

Asked if there were long-term solutions to situations like these, Tusek said that extreme weather events were happening across Europe and globally and that they indicated serious challenges related to climate change.

He added that experts were agreed that anti-hail systems were no longer effective and that insurance was one way to deal with such situations.

“A growing number of farmers are opting for insurance policies so as to be able to obtain at least partial compensation when situations like these occur,” Tusek said.

County head Kolar said he had proposed making an experiment and using hail cannons in one part of the region of Medjimurje, Varazdin County and Zagorje over a period of one year to see if there would be any differences in the intensity of bad weather affecting those regions.

He added that he had discussed the matter with Prime Minister Andrej Plenkovic on Monday and that a meeting on the topic was expected to be held in Karlovac on Friday.