The damage of bad weather from Tuscan vineyards to Apulian tomatoes

Climate change has split Italy in two since Sunday: hail and floods in the North, drought in the South. And national agriculture, which is already struggling with summer harvests, is starting to count the damage.

In Tuscany, hail has hit the Chianti and Vernaccia di San Gimignano areas. The most dramatic situation is in the municipalities of Certaldo and Castelfiorentino, in Val'Elsa, and in those of Greve and San Gimignano in Chianti. "The damage to the vineyards is heavy - says the president of Coldiretti Toscana, Letizia Cesani - we are talking about dozens and dozens of hectares of crops completely ruined. The rain, so much that fell in a short time, crashed on the dry and recently worked earth, favoring its erosion". Over the weekend, bad weather also hit the countryside of Lombardy, particularly affecting the stables and agricultural sheds of the Bergamo area. Hail also hit the Ravenna area hard, with heavy effects on orchards, olive groves and vineyards.

The South, on the other hand, remains gripped by the heat. In Puglia, the intense heat has further accentuated the water crisis, pushing farmers to cut tomato cultivation areas by 20%, particularly in the Fortore area, in the Foggia province, where the irrigation season never began because the little water left in the Occhito reservoir is primarily intended for drinking. In fact, the situation in Puglia is worsened by the lack of recharging of the aquifers, which in June recorded a deficit of about 87% in the province of Foggia. Today, the total volumes remaining in the local reservoirs amount to 90 million cubic meters, or about 27% of the authorized filling volumes. Thus, farmers have been forced to abandon part of their production to concentrate the use of the little water available. "This situation must push us to accelerate the implementation of the reservoir plan launched by Coldiretti and Anbi - we read in a note from the farmers' association - the reservoirs serve both to guarantee water reserves in periods of drought, and to limit the impact on the land of increasingly violent rains and downpours". Just over the weekend, the European Union gave its green light to direct financing of water management through community resources from cohesion funds.

In Puglia, the heat also cuts egg, milk and honey production. In addition to impacting wheat production: according to Coldiretti and Cai surveys, estimates for the next threshing will have to be lowered especially in the province of Foggia, the first Italian province for hectares cultivated with cereals, from which comes about 20% of all Italian durum wheat. Due to the drought, farmers expect a drop of at least 20% compared to the normal production potential.

Finally, Italy must deal with fires: since the beginning of the year, the European Effis system has detected almost 130, three times the average of the last twenty years. Coldiretti estimates that each hectare burned costs over 10 thousand euros, including extinguishing costs, remediation and restoration of the territory.