May 14, 2024, 05:02
3 min read
CATANIA – Drought emergency in Sicily, a mockery for farmers: the bills for the payment of “water” have arrived which the reclamation consortia have provided in fits and starts. Often salty water, as Gerardo Diana explains, president of the PGI Red Orange consortium. This is what he asks of politics. The interview.
Have the reclamation consortia presented you with the bill?
“In addition to the drought there is a further insult. Some reclamation consortia sent payment notices for the land improvement fees for 2023, even though in some cases we didn’t have any water, in others there was only one shift compared to 5 the previous year. But the water was very salty having been taken from the bottom of the dam. We were unable to take advantage of it because citrus rootstocks do not tolerate it. But we were asked to pay exorbitant contributions.”
What numbers are we talking about?
“There are companies that have 20 thousand euros or 200 thousand euros to pay, based on the size of the companies and the type of crops. In a year like this we must understand that planning has its time, but we are like people who have had a very serious accident and have to go to intensive care. We need oxygen and treatment to survive.”
What do you foresee?
“We have an entire irrigation season to manage, because summer should start on May 21st, but 37 degrees are about to arrive. And we don’t know how to deal with it. We don’t know what capacity our wells and company lakes have, we can’t be confident.”
What do you need?
“We need immediate relief. First intervention by the Region: cancel these payments immediately, do not suspend them. We are not in a position to pay because in the summer we will have to use these resources for power the extraction of water with electricity, increasingly deeper and more difficult to find. Then there is also pruning and fertilization, to guarantee a quality orange.”
What happened to the marketing of citrus fruits?
“The campaign just ended was in two phases. Until early February we managed to market oranges, but when small-sized ones came into play, with consumers accustomed to buying with their eyes, the price was reduced. Everything is over at the industries and we fear for next year.”
From a practical point of view, what is the drought doing to citrus groves?
“Great stress, because the plant needs water and we have now understood that irrigation water is used to keep plants alive, but the size of the fruit depends on the rain. Ours is a profession in which we live all year round alongside the plant and nature.”
The prospect is that even survival irrigation may be at risk
“Fortunately, the citrus growers are heroic, even at the cost of extending their shifts to guarantee the liters needed for the plant. But right now we need immediate action, and now we can’t afford to think about the future.”
What message does it send to politics?
“There is private agriculture which moves at a certain speed, then there is politics which is too slow. We must all run in the same direction and we must work in the same direction.”
Drought, updates
Published on
May 14, 2024, 05:02
