ZEME, July 24 — The roar of Dario Vicini’s motorcycle cuts through the silence as he drives across his rice paddy to survey the destruction wrought by Italy’s worst drought in 70 years.“Under normal circumstances, I would never have been able to ride my motorcycle over the field,” Vicini explained to AFP.
Around the rice paddies, cracks are visible in the parched earth and the feeble, stunted rice shoots are covered with a thin layer of dust.The waters of the Po River — Italy’s longest river whose flat drainage basin is the wide, fertile plain perfect for growing rice — are this year at a historically low level not seen since 1952.Zeme Mayor Massimo Saronni, a rice farmer himself for three decades, said that not only is the harvest suffering “but the whole ecosystem is withering away”.
Vicini’s 50 hectares are irrigated through the Cavour Canal, which carries the waters of the Po, while other rice paddies in the Pavia region are fed by Lake Maggiore or Lake Como.Early this month, Italy’s national government declared a state of emergency in five regions — Emilia-Romagna, Friuli-Venezia Giulia, Lombardy, Veneto and Piedmont — four of which are supplied by the Po.
Rice consumption rose in 2020 when millions of Italians were forced by the coronavirus lockdown to cook at home.
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