In Sicily there is fear of a disaster due to the lack of rain: not only for agriculture in general, but in particular for viticulture which the minister has so much at heart. Numbers to understand the problem
It is now clear that there must be a “Lollo protocol” somewhere, by virtue of which one of the best gaffeurs who have ever come to govern our country must demonstrate his abilities with a further demonstration of skill in the field.
The latest from Minister Lollobrigida goes something like this: “Fortunately this year the drought has hit some areas of the South and Sicily in particular”.
The minister, in apologizing to those who “felt offended”, simultaneously threw the matter into confusion: “To the jackals, who are trying to make a case of it, I suggest instead that they use their intellect a little better”, so he declared ; and we, in order not to be counted among those cute little animals, will try to use our limited intellectual resources to clarify why it is not a question of susceptibility and self-love that has moved the Sicilians to raise their protests, but rather of dismay in the face of to yet another apparent ignorance of how things are.
So let’s see: in the meantime, let’s start by saying that in Sicily, as the newspaper of that region wrote, due to the drought there is fear of a disaster this year not only for agriculture in general, but specifically for viticulture. A sector that is close to the minister’s heart, as he demonstrated with his words at Vinitaly, where among other things the Sicily pavilion was the most visited after that of the host region, Veneto.
In the Ismea report presented at the end of 2022, we find everything we need in terms of numbers.
First of all, the number of wineries, which is the second largest after Puglia (another southern region, where “fortunately” the drought has been limited). Sicily is also, with 99,000 hectares of vineyards, the second largest region of the “Italian vineyard” after Veneto (100,000 hectares); of these 99,000, 60,000 are PDO and 15,000 PGI, that is, of particular and recognized value.
From the same report, we then find that Sicily is the fourth region in Italy for the production of grapes and musts (2021 data), after Veneto, Puglia and Emilia Romagna, with 9 percent of national production.
But it is when you look at the turnover that the most interesting data comes. When the Ismea report was written (at the end of 2022, and therefore presumably taking into account the 2021 turnover), the bottled IGB alone were worth 226 million euros, in fourth place in Italy and ahead of very famous regions such as, say, Tuscany and Piedmont .
If you want more updated data, the detailed analysis carried out by the prof is very useful. Sebastiano Torcivia, professor at the University of Palermo: in that we find that the overall turnover for 2022 of Sicilian companies that sell wine was equal to 473.18 million euros, with a growth compared to the previous financial year of 13 percent – in moreover in line with the excellent signals coming from the last Vinitaly and despite the pandemic.
This is a concise and certainly not exhaustive set of elements which should make it easier to understand why, when some minister stumbles into yet another gaffe, then apologizing for the possible “offence” to the Sicilians, the concern increases even more: it is not a problem of love precisely what torments the inhabitants of the southern regions, as the risk of losing, due to the increasingly severe consequences of the altered climate, the result of the work carried out in a sector of excellence which has absolutely nothing to envy of what the sector achieves elsewhere of Italy.
Some gaffes don’t make you laugh, but cry.
