From drought to hail. It’s a spring without half measures that of 2024 in Piedmont. Especially in the western area, close to the Alps, up to Turin. The strong hailstorms (still Saturday at Cirie), with grains the size of tennis balls, in addition to creating problems in the city, they have damaged various crops, especially in the provinces of Turin And Wedge.
In the March-May quarter the rainfall has already broken the records of the last 70 years: Arpa Piemonte recorded around 550 mm on averagehalf the rainfall in a year. In this spring of 2024, the days of “significant rainfall”, i.e. more than 5 mm, were 30, 38 percent of the time, almost double what we observe in a normal spring. Since the beginning of the year, rainfall in Piedmont has been approximately double the average: as of May 21st the values (750 mm) are those of mid-October.
The damage in the fields seeyear from 30 to 80 percent for horticultural crops, hazelnuts, corn, wheat ready for cutting, but also fruit plants and rice fields. If the bad weather caused thousands of euros of damage in the Santena area alone – where the asparagus went under water and where the municipality has already requested natural disaster status – the bill for the entire region comes to around two million euros . And then there is the damage caused by animals: 5 million just for pigeons who often, in an attempt to shelter from bad weather, invade the stables.
Among the most affected crops the wheat which is currently blooming with other winter cereals such as spelt and barley. Same problem as corn, which struggles to grow after sowing given the constant changes in temperature and flooding. Thus the seedlings are suffocated by the water no longer absorbed by the soil or broken by the weight of the hailstones. The same that accumulates around the stems and on the ground above the still young roots creates a winter microclimate which can add lesions typical of frost. The same goes for the stable meadows, which are now ready to mow the Maggenco hay: farmers are unable to harvest because it is impossible to enter with agricultural vehicles onto waterlogged meadows.
Damage also reported on cherries now practically ripe and on vegetables such as courgettes and asparagus which are still in full harvest season.
«The script of 2023 is repeated – observes the president of Coldiretti Turin, Bruno Mecca Cici –, when we saw hailstorms on our fields already in the spring months. For our areas, hail storms were infrequent episodes and confined to the late summer months. For two years they have represented a scourge with a pounding frequency, an increasingly vast extension of the phenomena, a quantity of hail and a strength of the winds that were previously exceptional but are becoming normality”.
Also the rice, which in Piedmont covers almost 114 thousand hectares of the total 214 thousand in Italy, sees its sowing seriously delayed. «The continuous rains have forced farmers to delay sowing – he explains Roberto Guerrini, rice grower and president of Coldiretti Biella and Vercelli and member of the consortium for the protection of Baraggia DOP rice -. Many are trying to make up for lost time between one storm and another.” Not to mention that insurance policies against frost only started in March and with very high premium conditions and deductibles.”
There is alarm among producers. «In addition to the unpredictability of the climate, this year companies have had to deal with severe delays from insurance companies – he underlines Roberto Abellonio, director of Confagricoltura Cuneo –. We must encourage the diffusion of policies as well as reduce the cost borne by farmers and focus on closer collaboration with the public administration to speed up damage compensation procedures.”
