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.
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