The Rhine is likely to stay too shallow for fully loaded barges into November, Germany's federal hydrology institute forecasts, extending a low-water season that has already multiplied the cost of moving grain, oilseeds and feed upriver from Rotterdam.

The squeeze has pushed Switzerland into its feed reserves, with an ordinance freeing the country's whole compulsory stock of protein feed from Thursday.

Kaub fell to a record low of −6cm on 1 October, according to provisional readings from the Federal Waterways and Shipping Administration (WSV), which has yet to verify the new lows.

A yellow auxiliary water-level staff gauge stands in shallow water among exposed slate stones on the Rhine bank at Kaub, with Pfalzgrafenstein castle on its island in the background

That was below the 7cm low set in August and the 25cm mark from October 2018 that stood as the record until this summer. The gauge is a reference level, not a depth; the river there is about a metre deeper.

Rain from 8 October lifted the gauge to 20cm on Tuesday, but the BfG's four-day forecast has it back at 15cm by Friday.

[chart slug="rhine-low-water-grain-kaub-daily-level"]

THREE TO FOUR TIMES AS MANY SHIPS

At such levels barges sail part-loaded, and more of them are needed. Many vessels could carry only a third of their usual load, the German Raiffeisen Association (DRV), which represents farm co-operatives, said in mid-August.

"For the same quantity of goods, depending on the route and the water level, about three to four times as many ships are currently needed," Jörg-Simon Immerz, head of the agriculture segment at Munich-based BayWa, told top agrar on 17 August.

[chart slug="rhine-low-water-grain-contargo-kaub-surcharges"]

Co-operative farm supplier Agravis said then that freight from the seaports up the Rhine had risen by 100 to 120 per cent and nearly tripled on some routes, with its plants at Neuss and Wiesbaden hardest hit.

Moving 2,000 tonnes of meal took at least five to seven ships, against two normally.

Lorries can fill only part of the gap. Cologne-based co-operative trader Raiffeisen Waren-Zentrale Rhein-Main (RWZ) said 40 to 80 trucks were needed to replace one barge, depending on load size, and that road transport costs had roughly doubled.

Rail was no adequate short-term alternative either, for lack of infrastructure, it said.

Eight German farm-trade, milling, oilseed-processing and feed associations, including the DRV, called on 21 August for a temporary rise in the lorry weight limit to 44 tonnes for farm goods when rail or barge services fail, and for priority for essential farm goods on the railways, in a position paper sent to transport minister Steffen Bilger.

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The most widely reported barge rates are for tanker barges, which carry oil products. Tanker freight from Rotterdam to Karlsruhe rose from about €45 ($52) a tonne at the end of June to €160 to €165 ($185 to $191) on 6 August, commodity traders told Reuters.

Argus Media put the rate from the Amsterdam-Rotterdam-Antwerp hub to Karlsruhe at a record €215 on 13 August, though shipowners called quotes largely theoretical.

The cost of shipping diesel on the Rotterdam-Karlsruhe route rose 15 per cent on 28 September, after more than doubling during the month, Bloomberg reported. Contargo charges €1,075 per 20-foot container to terminals south of Koblenz with Kaub at 40cm or below, against €120 at the top of its standard low-water table.

[table slug="rhine-low-water-grain-tanker-freight-path" subtitle="Euros per tonne, oil-product tanker rates"]

Who carries that cost depends on the contract. RWZ said in August that it could not pass extra freight on under existing contracts, while new business priced it in. "It goes down the chain both 'down' to the farmer and 'up' to the buying industry," said Niklas Hielscher, an RWZ spokesman.

MEAL THE TIGHTEST LINK

The low water has hit in the busiest months for oilseeds. Germany imported 1.73mn tonnes of rapeseed from the Netherlands in 2025, along with 754,000 tonnes of soybean meal and 913,000 tonnes of nitrogen fertiliser, according to Eurostat data accessed via Cropli.

In each of the past three years, between a third and more than half of the rapeseed arrived from September to December. The figures cover all modes of transport, not only barges.

[explore reporter="de" products="1205" partner="NL" period="monthly" metric="quantity" view="chart" years="2023-2026" title="German rapeseed imports from the Netherlands, 2023–2026" subtitle="Monthly tonnes, January 2023 to June 2026, the latest data; all transport modes. September to December carried 43, 57 and 38 per cent of the 2023, 2024 and 2025 totals"]

Agravis said grain was less of a problem because most of its feed mills draw on regional harvests or canal sites; the strain was in rapeseed and soybean meal, which often come from oil mills on the Rhine or from Benelux seaports.

[explore reporter="de" products="2304" partner="NL" period="monthly" metric="quantity" view="chart" years="2023-2026" title="German soybean meal imports from the Netherlands, 2023–2026" subtitle="Monthly tonnes, January 2023 to June 2026, the latest data; all transport modes; 754,000 tonnes in 2025"]

BayWa expected no fundamental shortage of fertiliser, most of which is needed in spring.

RWZ was already seeing slower fertiliser deliveries, with the first difficulties in sulphur fertilisers, and advised farmers to buy at least part of their needs early.

SWISS RESERVE TAPPED

Switzerland, which relies almost entirely on imports for soybean meal, has gone further.

Since 1 September, when companies were allowed to draw up to a fifth of the country's compulsory stocks of protein feed – soybean, rapeseed and sunflower meal – they have taken 9.5 per cent, BauernZeitung reported on 12 October.

It is the first withdrawal from Swiss food or feed reserves since the system began, the paper said. In 2018, a draw was authorised during an earlier Rhine low but never used.

The ordinance from economics minister Guy Parmelin, citing an emerging shortage, frees the whole stock from Thursday. The reserve is meant to cover two months of demand if no imports arrived at all, the paper said, but the economics department says goods are still arriving, in smaller quantities.

DRY AT THE SOURCE

Basel-Binningen and Zürich-Fluntern had their driest July to September in series running back to 1900, with Basel at 30 per cent of its 1991-2020 average, according to MeteoSwiss data accessed via Cropli.

Freiburg and Strasbourg-Entzheim in the Upper Rhine valley and Bregenz and Feldkirch near Lake Constance also had their driest July-to-September on record, German, French and Austrian weather-service data show. The dry spell overlapped with the hottest June-to-August on record at Basel, Bern and Zürich.

[chart slug="rhine-low-water-grain-jul-sep-rain-stations"]

Ensemble forecasts for 13 to 27 October from ECMWF, the European weather centre, put median rainfall at 38 to 63 per cent of normal across the Black Forest, Lake Constance and Alpine headwaters. The European flood-awareness model GloFAS has Kaub's flow at about half its normal level on 11 November.

"A lasting easing of the low-water situation is not to be expected, however," the BfG said on 7 October.

ECMWF's seasonal model leans neutral to wet for November to January. "Only in the winter months does the then usually positive water balance bring a recovery of water reserves," the BfG wrote on 1 October.