The roar of Dario Vicini’s motorbike cuts the silence as he drives across his paddy field to survey the destruction caused by Italy’s worst drought in 70 years.
His fields are nothing but wasteland, with rice stalks slowly dying in the sandy soil.
“Under normal circumstances I would never have been able to ride my motorcycle across the field,” Vicini told AFP.
“At this time of year, the plants would be up to my knees and the paddy field would be flooded,” he said.
“Here they are tiny because the water needed to water them never arrived.”
Vicini’s Stella farm, in the Po Valley village of Zeme, 70 kilometers (43 miles) southwest of Milan, is part of Italy’s ‘golden triangle’ of paddy fields.
Providing Italy and the world with the country’s famous arborio for risotto and many other varieties, Europe’s premier rice-growing region stretches west from Pavia in Lombardy to Vercelli and Novara in Piedmont.
Vicini said the last “decent rain” in the region came in December.
“Climate change is to blame,” says the 58-year-old farmer, who estimates his income has fallen by 80 to 90 percent.
Enrico Sedino, another farmer in the area, is even more worried.
“If there’s no more water, I can lose up to 100 percent of my sales,” he said.
Cracks in the parched earth are visible around the rice fields, and the weak, stunted rice shoots are covered with a thin layer of dust.
The small irrigation canals that run along the fields are dry or almost dry.
The waters of the Po River – Italy’s longest river whose flat drainage basin is the vast, fertile plain perfect for rice cultivation – are at historically low levels this year, not seen since 1952.
The water, when it comes, arrives in droplets and droplets.
– lunar landscape –
Zeme Mayor Massimo Saronni, himself a rice farmer for three decades, said it’s not just the crops that are suffering, “but the entire ecosystem is stunted.”
Before that, the rice fields echoed with the singing of crickets and the croaking of frogs, while clouds of dragonflies fluttered over the fields. Freshwater birds such as gray herons and white ibises fed on insects.
Now “being in the country with such a heavy silence, it’s depressing, you feel like you’re on the moon!” he said.
Vicini’s 50 hectares are irrigated by the Cavour Canal, which carries the waters of the Po, while other paddy fields in the Pavia region are fed by Lake Maggiore or Lake Como.
However, regional authorities have warned that the reserves of these lakes could be exhausted by the end of July.
Earlier this month, the Italian 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.
Farmers are forced to abandon some fields in order to engage in others. “Just like the doctor who chose those who had a chance of salvation during the Covid-19 pandemic,” Saronni noted bitterly.
– ‘Apocalyptic’ –
The Po’s historically low water levels are having disastrous consequences for Italy’s more than 4,000 rice farms, spread over 220,000 hectares (543,630 acres).
Sixty percent of the 1.5 million tons of rice produced annually in Italy is exported. Among the more than 200 varieties are the famous brands Carnaroli, Arborio, Roma and Baldo, essential for the preparation of typical risotto dishes.
Rice consumption surged in 2020 as millions of Italians were forced to cook at home by the coronavirus lockdown.
But now the country is risking a rice shortage, warned Stefano Greppi, president of Pavia’s branch of Italy’s farming association Coldiretti.
“The situation is desperate, not to say apocalyptic,” said the rice farmer, estimating the economic damage at “incalculable … millions of millions of euros”.
“If there is no harvest this year, there is a risk that many farms will close or go bankrupt.”
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