Climate events cause 6bn in damage to agriculture in 2023

(ANSA) - ROME, DEC 28 - Extreme weather events including hailstorms, tornadoes, heavy rainfall, heat waves and strong winds have caused more than six billion euro in damage to agriculture in Italy in 2023, farmers' association Coldiretti said on Thursday.
    The amount includes damage to both crops and infrastructure, the association added. In a statement Coldiretti recalled that 2023 has been a "rollercoaster", marked first by a severe drought that compromised field crops, then by the multiplication of heavy rainfall alternating with extreme heat followed by a mild autumn but with violent cloudbursts that destroyed cities and the countryside, and finally by a hot early winter that sent nature into a tailspin.
    "Italy has lost almost 30 per cent of its farmland in the last half century due to urbanisation and abandonment, with the usable surface area reduced to just 12.8 million hectares," said Coldiretti president Ettore Prandini.
    This, he added, has an impact on the hydrogeological stability of the territory and on the country's production deficit.
    Photo: Coldiretti President Ettore Prandini. (ANSA).