Italy to cut rice production due to drought
quinta-feira, março 30, 2023
Italian rice production is expected to fall in 2023 as farmers facing a second year of drought reduce harvest land to the lowest level in more than two decades, farm groups warn.
Italy grows about 50% of the rice produced in the European Union and is the world's only producer of types best suited for risotto, such as Arborio and Carnaroli. About 94 percent of Italy's crop is grown in the northern regions of Lombardy, near Milan, and Piedmont, near Turin.
Roberto Magnaghi, director general of Ente Nazionale Risi, a public rice research body, told Reuters that no more than 211,000 hectares will be sown with rice by 2023, the smallest area in 23 years. "Water is scarce. We're all looking up at the sky," he said.
The 2023 estimate is lower by 7,400 hectares compared to 2022 and by 16,000 compared to 2021. The Coldiretti agricultural lobby made a similar estimate. Magnaghi said the outlook in Lombardy and Piedmont is even bleaker than in 2022, when crops were hurt by drought and production fell 17 percent from a year earlier. In Lombardy's Pavia province, famous for its risotto rice, production fell by 16 percent.
Soil moisture levels have not yet recovered from last year's drought and the current accumulation of snow in the Italian Alps is lower than in 2022, said Andrea Toreti, an agriculture expert at the European Commission's Joint Research Centre. "It will be difficult to fill the deficit we have with the spring rains," he said.
Scientists and environmental groups sounded the alarm about Italy's water shortage in January after the sharp fall in winter snowfall.
Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni told parliament on Tuesday she was working with regional and municipal authorities on a "national water plan" to improve infrastructure with new technologies and raise public awareness of the need to save water.
WASTED WATER
Rice, introduced to Italy in the second half of the fifteenth century, is one of the most water-intensive crops, requiring between 3,000 and 10,000 liters of water to obtain a kilogram of production, depending on the varieties and other conditions.
The sowing season begins in April, when farmers plant the seeds in puddles 30 to 40 centimeters deep. These must then be constantly irrigated to keep the sprouts that are to come underwater.
Coldiretti is pressing the government to increase the reservoir's capacity, its head of economy, Lorenzo Bazzana, told Reuters, adding that Italy can collect only 11 percent of its rainwater. With climate change bringing increasingly frequent droughts, Italy is also looking for other solutions to protect its rice production.
The southern island of Sicily, which abandoned rice production a century ago, returned to growing it in 2016 with small-scale crops using innovative techniques that need far less water than those traditionally used in the north.
Magnaghi, of Ente Nazionale Risi, said research is also underway to create new rice varieties that are more drought-resistant, but this is hampered by European Union legislation limiting genetically modified crops. "With traditional methods, it takes years to create new varieties," he said.
Source: Agrolink
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