Italy: floods risk economic and food disaster

This field near Bologna, in Emilia-Romagna, has not been spared by the floods. He appears devastated, here on May 17, 2023. REUTERS - CLAUDIA GRECO

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1 min

Italy is counting the catastrophic effects of the floods on its agriculture. In rich Emilia-Romagna, considered "the orchard of Italy", thousands of agricultural hectares have been drowned under water, ravaging cereal fields, market gardening, fodder for livestock. 5,000 farms are flooded. The damage due to bad weather is in the billions of euros, to be added to the two billion estimated after the floods that already hit the region at the beginning of the month.

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With our correspondent in Rome, Anne Tréca

The photo made the front page of all Italian newspapers. In the middle of dozens of pigs submerged underwater to the head, a farmer was calling for help for his 3,000 animals trapped by the floods. Fifty died, and the rest were eventually evacuated. But for a spared farm, how many will be ruined?

Farmers are living a nightmare. Emilia-Romagna is the leading production region for wheat and sugar beet. With this second wave of flooding in 15 days, 400 million kilos of wheat are already lost.

The region is also a champion in the export of apples, pears, plums. We are talking here about the "Fruit Valley", which generates more than one billion euros in annual turnover. But the roots of plants rot under the mud. There will be almost no harvest in 2023, and those of the coming years are compromised.

If we also count companies in the agricultural sector, a total of 50,000 jobs are at risk of disappearing. A food, economic and social disaster.

" READ ALSO – Italy: thousands of farms under water, billions of euros of damage

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• Italy
• Natural disasters
• Economic crisis