Emilia Romagna: Devastating floods that compromise production

Coldiretti (Confederazione Nazionale Coltivatori Diretti) predicts that the fruit harvest will be compromised for the next 4 or 5 years. The water submerged the orchards and "choked" the roots of the trees which risk complete rot if they are not explanted and then replanted. These necessary operations would concern approximately 15 million trees and plants in orchards of peaches, nectarines, kiwis, apricots, pears, plums and cherries.

 

Floods, landslides and mudslides have damaged various structures (greenhouses, buildings), machinery and equipment in thousands of farms in the region as well as bridges and roads.

 

These devastating floods also affected areas of wheat (60,000 hectares), sunflower, rapeseed and soya (7,000 hectares), alfalfa (40,000 hectares) for animal feed as well as farms where 250,000 animals (cattle , pig, sheep, goats, chickens, laying hens, turkeys) are bred.

 

In Italy, Romagna is one of the most agricultural areas of the country with a gross marketable production estimated at around EUR 1.5 billion per year.