Drought in Sicily threatens grain crops and animal herds. July 3, 2024

At the beginning of May, the Italian government declared a state of emergency on the southern island (Alberto PIZZOLI)

By AFP - Agence France Presse

Drought in Sicily threatens grain crops and animal herds.

A crushing drought in Sicily has dried up grain fields, deprived livestock of pasture, and sparked a wave of forest fires, causing damage already estimated at 2.7 billion euros this year.

In an attempt to mitigate the effects of the water crisis, the Italian government declared a state of emergency for the southern island at the beginning of May, releasing funds to buy tanker trucks, drill wells, and renovate pumping and desalination stations.

But the following months of continuous high temperatures have done nothing to improve the already dire conditions, with farmers giving up on their crops and now wondering how they will feed and water their animals.

“There's no hope because it hasn't rained since May last year,” said Salvatore Michele Amico, a farmer near the town of San Cataldo in Sicily's dry interior.

“All the planted fields have been lost: there's no wheat, no barley, no oats,” Amico told AFP.

The land in these regions, devoid of vegetation, is bare and cracked. Rivers, lakes, and wells have dried up and farm equipment is sitting idle on once-productive land, while cows roam in search of a blade of grass.

Sicily, once the breadbasket of ancient Rome, is expected to have its wheat harvest reduced by more than 50% this year, according to agricultural lobby Coldiretti.

“It hasn't rained this year, so we haven't harvested anything and we can't feed or water the animals,” noted another nearby farmer, Beppe Palmieri, whose land previously housed cattle and goats, as well as fields of grain and feed.

Although efforts are being made to bring in feed from outside, the water situation is “critical”, said Palmieri.

"There is no water for the animals to drink, we don't know what to do. We have accessibility problems, certain types of tanker trucks can't go up and supply the animals with water,” he said.

- 5,800 hectares burned - Are you?

Farmer Fabio Scarantino stands in front of his herd of cattle. Their light brown hides match the dry, dusty landscape behind them.

"Climate change in Sicily is real. In the past, we talked about it, but we could never have imagined experiencing it first-hand,” said Scarantino.

Unlike coastal Sicily, which depends largely on tourism, “in inland Sicily, which depends on livestock farming and agriculture, climate change plays a considerable role,” he said.

Families who have been farming for generations are left with no prospects for the future, including livestock farmers who have built up the bloodlines of their animals over decades, said Massimo Primavera, Coldiretti's director for the area around Caltanissetta, a town of 250,000 inhabitants in central Sicily.

In addition to the threat to livestock and grain fields, the drought is also affecting fruit trees, vineyards, and olive groves, amounting to more than 2.7 billion euros (2.9 billion dollars), according to Coldiretti.

Meanwhile, 5,800 hectares (14,000 acres) of farmland have been burned down since the beginning of July due to forest fires that broke out with the drought conditions, the group said.

Exacerbating the effects of the drought is the lack of investment in infrastructure “to avoid wasting water”, said Coldiretti.

According to Italy's National Institute of Statistics (Istat), Sicily has one of the highest rates of wasted drinking water in the country, with 51.6% of water lost in distribution circuits in 2022.

Istat, which claims that every day in Italy 157 liters are lost per person, attributes the waste to the “persistent state of the inefficiency of many distribution networks”.

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