• The water crisis is having repercussions on agriculture, with an estimated three billion euros in damages.
  
• In the fields of northern Italy, rice production is forecast to fall by 30 per cent.
• In the Po Delta, rising temperatures and sea salinity are putting clam farms at risk.
• Solutions lie in the use of new agricultural techniques, but also in our food consumption and waste habits.

The extraordinary heat and lack of rain that have persisted for months are compromising the agricultural outputs that require the most water. According to Coldiretti, the damage to agriculture already caused by drought amounts to three billion euros: northern Italy is the area suffering most from the water crisis, with Piedmont, Lombardy, Emilia-Romagna and Veneto among the worst-affected regions. Production is forecast to fall by one third for rice, by 15 per cent for fruit, and by 20 per cent for mussels and clams.

From Piedmont to Lombardy, rice paddies run dry due to lack of water

The drought is drying out the rice paddies of Piedmont and Lombardy, which grow Carnaroli, Arborio and Rome varieties — varieties of which Italy is the world's sole producer. Cia Agricoltori estimates a 30 per cent fall in Italian rice production for 2022. With 2 million tonnes produced per year across around 227,000 hectares, Italian rice accounts for more than 50 per cent of total European production; consumption grew by 16 per cent during the pandemic.

Clams without oxygen in the Po Delta

Feagripesca-Confcooperative is meanwhile raising the alarm over fish production in lagoons and mussel and clam farming, which are "suffocating" as the rise in salinity and water temperature in the sea encourages the proliferation of algae that, without a renewal of the water, deprive clams of oxygen. In the Po Delta, where the salt wedge (that is, the advance of the sea into the river) has reached a record 30 kilometres, Coldiretti estimates a 20 per cent loss in clam farming.

Agriculture and drought: the solutions

While regions are declaring a state of emergency and calling for water earmarked for hydroelectric power generation to be redirected to human and agricultural use, the government is coming to farmers' aid with funds from the National Recovery and Resilience Plan (Pnrr) and is working on a decree to address the situation. For Carlo Petrini, founder of Slow Food, the worst water crisis in 70 years is "a glaring signal of climate change; of an irreversible process underway that will turn drought from an occasional crisis into a chronic problem." But solutions exist and must be sought — he suggests — in new irrigation techniques, in rainwater harvesting, in practices of reusing treated wastewater, in growing local and seasonal plant varieties that require fewer external inputs, including water, while at the same time keeping the soil alive and permeable, in reducing waste and in consuming foods that require less water to produce.

For the Wwf, it is necessary to "draw inspiration from what nature has always done: harness the functioning of ecosystems to retain water, make it available and recharge aquifers; protect soil, forests and wetlands." For Greenpeace, too, it is essential to protect agricultural land from further stress, so that it can continue to be productive in the years ahead — meaning we must strengthen rather than derogate from those environmental measures that protect the health and fertility of soils and agricultural areas, for example by increasing their capacity to retain moisture.