This past year's unusual climate severely hurt Italian farm production and should the change in the weather become permanent Italy's farming sector could lose its competitiveness, the Coldiretti farmers' union warned on Friday.
According to Coldiretti, olive oil production this year tumbled 17% from last year, wine was down 12% and the harvest of fruits was down 5.4% while vegetable production as a whole sank by an average of 4.4%.
This came at the end of a year, Coldiretti observed, which saw the warmest winter and spring in 200 years while the summer was one of the ten hottest in the past two centuries.
The warmer climate, the union observed, has resulted in a shift of cultivation areas for certain crops with durum wheat, tomatoes and olives now growing at the foot of the Alps.
Climate change has also brought about extreme weather conditions, including short but heavy rainfall, and created an environment for the development of damaging fungus and led to the multiplication of insect which devastate farmland, like locusts.
Shifting growing areas are not the only effects of global warming, Coldiretti added, ''conditions for curing meats, aging cheese and wine have also changed''.
Climate change and diminishing water resources, Coldiretti said, ''are the greatest challenge facing farmers today. They will demand maintenance of water infrastructures, the management of water resources and the recovery and recycling of used water''.
Farmers must also learn to save water, adopt new irrigation methods and grow crops which need less water, the union added.
