Crops rot as Italian farmers hit by virus, drought

FASANO, Italy – Floriana Fanizza gazes desolately at her celery crop, lost to the coronavirus because it could not be harvested.

Italian farmers are being brought to their knees by a 6-week lockdown aimed at stopping a deadly epidemic in its tracks. They are also suffering a drought caused by the driest spring in more than half a century.

Border blocks, restaurant closures, and a lack of seasonal workers mean nearly 4 out of 10 businesses in the fruit and vegetable sector are struggling, according to Italy’s biggest agricultural union Coldiretti.

On the Fanizza family farm in Fasano, a town near the Puglia coast in southern Italy, some pickers, fearful for their health, stayed at home as the country went into shutdown at the start of March.

That meant there were not enough hands to harvest the celery and turnip crops, which were ruined. The clock is now ticking on seeding vegetables for harvesting this summer.

“To sow properly, we need 7 or 8 people,” 41-year-old Fanizza says.

“We hope we’ll be able to find them, otherwise we will have to reduce production.” 

Some 350,000 foreigners are usually employed seasonally in Italy’s agriculture sector.

The coronavirus crisis means this year there is a shortage of between 250,000 and 270,000, according to the farming ministry.

Urgent action needed

“Something must be done urgently, as the harvests of strawberries, asparagus, artichokes, and greenhouse fruits (such as melons, tomatoes, and peppers) are already underway,” Coldiretti said in a note.

And others will soon begin, such as cherries, apricots, and plums, it said.

The production crisis could impact food availability.

Italy’s agricultural sector is the 3rd biggest in Europe in terms of overall value – it was worth 56.6 billion euros ($61.5 billion) in 2019 – after France (75.4 billion euros) and Germany (57 billion euros).

With Romanians alone accounting for 110,000 of the country’s 350,000 foreign seasonal workers, Rome is in talks with Bucharest over “green corridors” to ease movement between the two countries.

Minister of Agriculture Teresa Bellanova has also called for mass regularization of undocumented migrants in Italy in order to get the economy moving again.

Many are currently living in shanty towns and are exploited by the mafia and an illegal labor system known as “caporalato,” where intermediaries who bring workers to farmers take a large part of their meager wages.

The proposal, approved by Coldiretti, was slammed by the far-right.

Driest spring in 60 years

The virus is not the farmers’ only problem. Italy is also experiencing its driest spring in the last 60 years.

It has seen just over half its usual rainfall since the beginning of the year, creating a water shortage the size of Lake Como – the 3rd largest lake in Italy, according to weather experts.

“It hasn’t rained for a long time and the land is arid, especially for wheat,” farmer Fanizza says. 

“The situation is critical, we need to irrigate our fields.”

The government has set up a 100-million-euro fund to support agricultural businesses.

Rome has also forked over 50 million euros to buy food and distribute it to Italy’s poorest, a three-pronged approach aimed at helping the hungry, cutting waste, and preventing price drops. – Rappler.com