Parmesan cheese producers in Italy suffer from drought

The main artery that cuts through the heart of Italy, where 30% of its food is produced, is the 650-kilometer-long Po River, which meanders from the Alps to the Adriatic Sea on Italy’s northeast coast. A dry winter and spring may have gotten the river into trouble this year.

The “Great River”, as it is known, plays a key role in the history of the nation. Before bridges were built, their deep waters protected civilizations on both sides from invaders they could not cross.

In later years, cities and industries sprang up on its shores and used the water for hydroelectric power, transportation, and irrigation. Along some sections of the Po River, processing plants turn the muddy river into drinking water.

The Dust is fed by winter snow in the Alps and heavy rains in spring, which often lead to devastating flooding. At a cafe near the banks of the river in the city of Mantova, a measuring scale on the wall indicates how high the water has risen. In 1951, it almost hit the roof.

But in 2022, things are very different. An exceptionally dry winter meant that snowmelt was scarce, and spring rains were sporadic, leading to the worst drought in Italy’s northern regions in more than 70 years, a regional Po River agency confirmed.

As a result, Dust is reaching record low water levels, according to the European Space Agency. An animation from the agency’s Copernicus Sentinel-2 satellite mission reveals how the river “shrank significantly” between June 2020 and June 2022.

And that’s a big problem for the millions of people who depend on Dust for their livelihoods. The salinization of the Adriatic Sea has begun to turn its fresh water into an unusable poison for crops. Recent samples show salt water more than 20 kilometers inland, and as the river descends, the sea will continue to fill the void.

Massimiliano Fazzini, head of the Climate Risk Department at the Italian Society of Environmental Geology, says that in the current hydrological year, which started on December 1, the Po River basin has a water deficit of around 45% to 70% in some areas. .

“I’m usually never a pessimist or an alarmist, but this time we should be an alarmist,” he told CNN , citing the difference in average snowfall — from 7.5 meters in normal years to 2.5 meters this year. Coupled with rising temperatures mean that reservoirs that may be accessible in a drought year are not at their maximum capacity. “The situation is critical and it can only get worse,” he said.

At Simone Minelli’s dairy farm, along the banks of the river near Mantova, the outlook is bleak. Water is an essential part of the operation to feed his herd of 300 Friesian cattle, he told CNN .

Their dairy cows produce 30 liters (6.6 gallons) of milk a day, which is made into this region’s authentic Parmigiano Reggiano Parmesan cheese. If your cows do not drink between 100 and 150 liters (22 to 33 gallons) of water a day or are overheated, the milk will not meet strict standards and the cheese will not receive the coveted seal of approval.

But a bigger concern than the water in their drinkers is what they will eat. Minelli mainly uses Po water for irrigation of crops which he uses to feed his cattle. he showed the CNN a soybean field that has not been irrigated and is suffering from small, wilted plants that do not nourish the herd.

He’s worried about water restrictions as he watches the Dust level drop further – and where he’ll buy food if other farmers aren’t able to harvest the food either. “I’m very worried, we take it day by day,” he said. “If you don’t have enough food to feed your cattle, you have to cut back,” he said, referring to the number of cows in his herd.

At the nearby Parmigiano Reggiano consortium, their milk is blended with that of 20 other milk producers to produce 52,000 wheels of the coveted cheese each year. If the milk dries up, the cheese will not be made.

Further up the river, Ada Giorgi showed the CNN the pump house operated by the consortium she presided over for 20 years. The consortium had to pay to remove sand from the riverbed so the pumps wouldn’t get clogged, she said, and added a meter of pipe to lower the pumps further if the water level continued to drop. Water from the pump house is fed into a labyrinth of channels that lead to irrigation centers and processing plants.

The consortium’s 150,000 customers are still receiving water, but looking at the Po level, Giorgi says she’s worried about the future. “The last time the river was low was in 2003,” she told CNN . “This time it’s much, much worse. There is a lack of rain, snow and high temperatures,” she said. “Creates the famous perfect storm. We are in an extreme crisis.”

If it doesn’t rain — and no significant rain is forecast for the foreseeable future — things will only get worse. In the city of Milan, Italy’s financial center, the mayor ordered all ornamental fountains to be turned off and banned the washing of vehicles, or watering of gardens and lawns.

In the small town of Castenaso, near Bologna, hairdressers and barbers are banned from washing customers’ hair twice in an attempt to save water before supplies run too low.

Meanwhile, a grueling heat wave has hit much of southern Italy since May.

Scientists call the Mediterranean region a hotspot of the climate crisis. The man-made crisis has made heat waves more frequent and intense there, and has led to less rainfall in the summer. Temperatures are expected to be between 20% and 50% warmer than the global average, and droughts will worsen by mid-century, even as the world cuts its greenhouse gas emissions. If emissions continue at very high levels, droughts and wildfires will become so severe that continuing agriculture will be difficult. Tourism will also become less attractive.

Italy is a net exporter of food, supplying goods such as wheat to many developing nations. A drought in the region is only exacerbating a food crisis that is being acutely felt in the poorest parts of the world. And the Po River has huge significance for Italians.

Author Tobias Jones, whose book “The Dust – A Praise for Italy’s Greatest River” traces the history of the river, tracing its full length to capture its importance. He says the Dust is to Italy what the Thames is to London, or the Mississippi to the United States.

“For centuries, the concern was about the river flooding, but climate change has meant that the river is now in danger of drying up,” he told CNN .

“It’s not just a river, it’s part of the national psyche. Cities along it attract tourism and industry. It was almost a moat to central Italy that kept it safe from invaders. Now it is threatened and no one knows what to do to save it.”