Record drought in Italy: first figures for wine, pasta and olive oil published - large losses expected

Created: 09/05/2022, 20:17

By: Patrick Mayer

Often in picturesque locations: Vineyards in Italy's Tuscany, here in the Chianti region.

© IMAGO/gkuna

It is slowly becoming clear how many losses Italian farmers and the food industry expect due to drought and dryness.

From pasta to olive oil to wine, popular products are affected.

Munich/Rome/Florence - Chianti, that sounds like longing for Italy.

The picturesque hilly landscape of the wine-growing region of the same name extends in Tuscany between Pisa, Florence and Siena.

The dry, ruby-colored red wine, whose intense taste contains traces of vanilla and violets, was synonymous with Italian wine in Germany for many years.

Drought in Italy: wine-growing regions between Lake Garda, Tuscany and Apulia are struggling with water shortages

Its cultivation area covers about a third of rural Tuscany (about 3.7 million inhabitants).

The cultivation and sale of wine is correspondingly important as an economic factor.

But: Like other focal points of the Italian food industry, the Chianti region also suffers from drought and dryness and the associated lack of water.

The winegrowers in the area on the west coast of Italy therefore expect large losses of grapes and, of course, of wine in the 2022 harvest.

To put this in context: the Chianti is usually harvested in September and October during the Tuscany grape harvest.

As reported by the ARD "Tagesschau", wine production in Italy could fall by ten percent due to the drought, according to the Coldiretti agricultural association.

Chianti is just one of many examples, between Lake Garda, Soave near Verona, the wine region of Campania near Naples or the Primitivo wine-growing region in the extreme south of Puglia.

And wine is just one example of the impending losses of the food industry, which is so important to Italy's economy.

The bunches are smaller and we expect that there will be fewer than average overall.

Sergio Zingarelli, Vice President of the “Chianti Classico” Consortium

Tuscany: worry in the Chianti wine region between Florence, Pisa and Siena

“The grapes are smaller and we assume that there will be fewer overall than the average in recent years.

Now we have to wait for rain, because without rain they will not be ready for harvest," Sergio Zingarelli, Vice President of the "Chianti Classico" consortium, recently told ARD: "We assume that we will have to harvest ten days earlier than in previous seasons , because the grapes are ripe earlier.”

Zingarelli has his own winery near the town of Castellina, just north of the tourist hotspot of Siena.

Because of the drought, the concerns of Italian agriculture are not just about their wine, which German consumers are known to drink.

They also appreciate the tasty olive oil from Italy.

But a bad harvest is also expected for this, according to the “Tagesschau” olive oil production could fall by 30 percent this year.

In the video: drought in Italy - Lake Garda reaches its lowest water level in 15 years

“Unfortunately, the climate had a decisive influence.

We've had a very dry spring with virtually no rainfall from March to today, during the crucial phase in the transition from flowering to fruiting," explained Filippo Legnaioli, an olive grower from San Casciano in Tuscany's Val di Pesa, according to the report: " Flowering was excellent, but unfortunately the lack of water hampered the development of the olives.” But that's not all.

Drought in Italy: production of pasta durum wheat, corn, milk and risotto rice collapses

According to ARD, the production of durum wheat for the popular pasta noodles has fallen by 30 percent, and the production of corn and animal feed by as much as 45 percent.

Milk production has been down 20 percent so far this year, which is also having an impact on the cheese industry.

This puts quality standards at risk, such as the DOP seal for Parmesan.

The (risotto) rice farmers in Piedmont in northern Italy are even expecting crop failures of 50 to 70 percent in 2022, as the weekly newspaper

reports.

The Coldiretti agricultural association estimates the damage to date at a total of around three billion euros.

And the numbers that are supposed to describe the losses are becoming more and more concrete.