Bad weather. Coldiretti: Millions of damage to olive trees, vineyards, vegetables and rice

2020-09-26T09:02:55.178Z

Pastures and pastures abandoned in a hurry with the cattle due to the arrival of snow in the Dolomites up to Cortina, but along the Peninsula bad weather has uprooted rural buildings, uprooted plants, torn up greenhouses, flooded fields and stables, stripped olive groves and vineyards, ruined fruit and vegetables and destroyed rice crops in full harvest with the work of a whole year lost on farms with millions of damages. This is the balance of Coldiretti which drew the first map of the effects of the last wave of bad weather in a month of September marked by an average of over 3 storms a day along the Peninsula between storms, tornadoes, water bombs, hailstorms, strong wind and even the arrival of snow on the mountains, according to data from the European Severe Weather Database (ESWD). Bad weather has hit a patchy patch from north to south of the country with violent demonstrations that - underlines Coldiretti - have devastated the countryside where the harvest is in full swing but also the harvest of apples, pears and that of olives and rice that has suffered a violent storm with water bombs, wind and hail right between Pavia and Novara where over half of the made in Italy production is produced. But damage can be counted all along the boot from Piedmont where the winemakers have decided to anticipate the Nebbioli harvest in Lombardy with destroyed corn fields and flooded stables and barns while in Veneto a storm - specifies Coldiretti - has hit the kiwi crops and on the grapes not yet harvested while grains of ice as big as walnuts have destroyed the vegetables in the fields. The regions of central Italy were not spared but also the southern countryside where the severe bad weather that hit the province of Salerno uprooted old trees in the Nocerino Sarnese countryside where there are also greenhouses uncovered by the strong wind while in Puglia hailstorms and sudden storms with gusts of wind tore away the olives from the trees and the table grapes, drowning the late vegetables in the open field. The violence of the weather - highlights Coldiretti - is the result of the enormous thermal energy accumulated in the atmosphere in a year which has so far been more than one degree (+1.05 degrees) above the historical average, ranking second in Italy. among the hottest since 1800, based on Coldiretti analysis on Isac Cnr data relating to the first eight months, which also highlights the fall of about 25% less rain despite the multiplication of storms and hailstorms. We are facing - continues Coldiretti - the consequences of climate change with a tendency to tropicalization that manifests itself with larger hail, a higher frequency of violent events, seasonal delays, short and intense rainfall and the rapid transition from the sun to bad weather , with costs of over 14 billion euros in a decade, including losses in national agricultural production and damage to structures and infrastructures in the countryside with flooding, landslides and landslides. Real water bombs hit - underlines Coldiretti - on a territory made fragile by the hydrogeological instability with 7,275 Italian municipalities at risk from landslides or floods (91.3% of the total). A situation aggravated by the fact that - concludes Coldiretti - in the last 25 years in Italy 28% of the usable agricultural area in Italy has been lost, reduced to just 12.8 million hectares, in favor of asphalt and concrete.