An increase in costs of 30 - 40% and a decrease in product availability of 20 - 30% compared to previous years.
This is what the Observatory of the Rome Agri-food Center (CAR) foresees due to the water crisis.
Leafy products are most affected - notes Car Roma - watermelons and greenhouse products.
Among the exemplary cases - they argue - that of watermelons in the face of the fact that last year the producers spent about 6,000 / 7,000 euros per hectare, while this year, due to continuous irrigation, an increase of 20% is estimated. 'hectare.
The Agri-food Center adds that "another criticality is linked to irradiation, especially for producers who have sprinkler irrigation systems as irrigation takes place early in the morning or late in the evening to avoid damaging the products".
Car specifies on the merits, that "the early arrival of spring has changed the irrigation shifts, increasing the frequency, while before the irrigation took place every 3 days.
Now, in this period every day".
Finally, the Agri-food Center compares the average of the prevailing prices of the first 6 months of 2021 with those of 2022. The calculations show that last year watermelons had a price of 0.83 euro / kg and lettuce 0.71 euro / kg , now the price of watermelons is 0.92 euros / kg and lettuce 0,