Aro, Italy-Every morning at dawn, Roberto Gerini walks around the paddy fields in northern Italy, where his family has been cultivating rice for four generations, making sure there are no holes in the soil embankments.
Don’t waste a drop of water. The drought situation is so severe that the government declared a state of emergency in much of northern Italy last week. There is also growing concern that things will never be the same in one of the country’s most fertile regions.
Gerini, along with tens of thousands of other farmers in the Po river basin, is struggling to deal with situations that can lead to more frequent and more intense strikes in times of climate change.
Climate change expert Massimiliano Paschi said: At the Italian National Research Council. “This year we have reached a situation where these three factors combine together to cause this extreme drought.”
The results can be seen around this area. At least 11 people died when the glacier collapsed in the Dolomites on July 3. This is a tragedy caused by climate change by Prime Minister Mario Draghi. Towns throughout the region have been distributing water for months. Cars are dusty Until now, the pool is not full and in some cities tap water is cut off at night. In Castenaso, just east of Bologna, hairdressers and hairdressers are banned from double shampooing.
Global warming increases the likelihood of drought, and even though scientists are still studying the relationship between the relentless summers of the Po River basin and the wider phenomena of climate change, there are periods of varying severity of dryness. It is becoming a new norm for farmers around the world.
Higher temperatures dry the soil and vegetation, causing more rainfall than snow, which can affect the availability of agricultural water. Climate change can also affect precipitation patterns around the world, making arid areas drier.
As a result, farmers are forced to make difficult decisions about which crops to plant, how much water to give, and whether to abandon some fields altogether.
In Italy, according to Coldiretti, a coalition of national agricultural producers, this problem is most pronounced on farms in the Po river basin, accounting for about 30 percent of the country’s agricultural production in market value. According to the alliance, the drought will ultimately cost farmers about € 3 billion, or $ 3.05 billion, this year, which has been the hardest hit for the region in 70 years.
The Po River, Italy’s longest waterway from the Alps to the Adriatic Sea, is one of the complex systems that has helped Napoleon irrigate what Napoleon described as “the most fertile plain in the world” for centuries. It was a club.
Now, with some stretches, Po gradually decreased. Boat clubs hang oars, sunbathing teens just graduated from school set up beach umbrellas on the riverbed, and two ships sank in 1944 in the central town of Po, Guartieri. Did. Earlier this year As the water recedes.
Image taken by European Space Agency Tracking of the river and surrounding soil over the last three years has recently been published under the dark heading “The Po River Drys”.
Gerini grows, among other things, the popular Italian risotto varieties Arborio and Carnaroli in the village of Alo (population 214), named after the Spanish word for rice, “Aros”. Settlers.
With less rain during the winter, Gerini said, “I was talking about drought for months,” but weeks of sunny weather and high temperatures still hit him. produce.
“Water management is 80 percent of rice cultivation,” said Gerini. “If you can’t manage it properly, you lose the harvest.”
Due to the heat, the plants mature early and are “not good for quality,” he said. And he was worried that the grain would never reach full plumpness and would instead shrink in the relentless summer sun. To make matters worse, the early emergence of rice blast, a fungal disease that usually occurs later in the season.
Meuccio Berselli, secretary general of the Po River Basin, said the basin had experienced a sixth drought in the last two decades and there was no doubt in his mind why it happened. “For years we’ve said we have to accelerate our adaptation to climate change, which is no longer controversial,” he said.
Paddy fields moistened by labyrinthine irrigation systems, which are tightly regulated by the local irrigation consortium, are at great risk. Upstream near the Alps, the situation is serious, if not dire, but downstream, many rice farmers are suffering.
“I’m trying to save what can be rescued,” said Genre Izitakini, who grows rice and other crops in Santa Christina Ebissone this week. Po river It was measured 2.49 meters below normal water level.
Instead of watering the paddy fields every 8 to 10 days, Tacchini was forced to extend the gap to the 18th and abandon some fields altogether. He has already lost half of his crop and estimated that he was at risk of losing the entire season.
Italian president Paolo Kara National rice board“But in some areas, there are signs that rice cultivation has been completely destroyed,” he said, saying it was “premature” to assess the situation until September, when rice is normally harvested. .. Italy produces 52% of Europe’s nation, more than any other country, almost all grown in Piedmont and Lombardy.
The drought would not have been the worst time for farmers. Electricity, gasoline and fertilizer prices have almost doubled this year, with little financial relief, according to Gerini.
The government allocated € 36.5 million in emergency aid last week, which is unlikely to be of great help. It can take several years to be divided into five regions, divided into local agencies and distributed.
Crop insurance also does not provide a solution. It targets extreme weather events such as hail and heavy rains that are becoming more common in Italy but not drought.
The situation in the north was severe, but there were signs that “the drought has spread to central and southern Italy” as a result of consistently higher than average temperatures, Ramona Magno said. Drought climate serviceResearch Center.
According to experts, offsetting the effects of climate change requires huge investments and new thinking, such as the construction of lakes and reservoirs, satellite field monitoring, and simple measures such as improving water infrastructure. Magno said the country has lost more than 40 percent of its drinking water due to the aging of pipes.
“We have to change our approach to the problem and change our minds to face it,” Magno said.
River basin officials Berseri said there were other concerns. In Po Delta, a fertile plain adjacent to the Adriatic Sea, saltwater invasion changes rivers and their mouths, infiltrating groundwater and endangering the fertility of farmland.
“Water is life,” he said. “We can’t waste it.”
One day last week, Gerini took a moment to rest when a summer storm sprinkled an inch of rain and filled the canal. “But it only lasted one day,” he said.
Summer has barely begun, and he said a 10-day stretch without water was enough to put his crop at serious risk.
The next few weeks, when the rice fields have to be watered regularly, will feel like “the eternity of agriculture,” Gerini said. “We are not at risk yet.”