The island of Sicily is facing a severe drought that is devastating local agriculture and causing hardship for its residents. Farmers are struggling to keep their crops alive as water becomes increasingly scarce. Gerardo Diana, a Sicilian farmer, says the two-year drought has decimated his fields of wheat and beans.
Despite efforts to pump water from underground or nearby lakes, he is also worried about his prized blood oranges. “This is just survival! Unfortunately, with this long summer, we are also scared of the possibility of the plants dying,” he says. Wildfires, flash floods, and extreme heat waves have also hit Sicily.
In the summer of 2021, the town of Syracuse recorded a scorching 48.8° Celsius, the highest temperature in European history. The Mediterranean basin, of which Sicily is the largest island, is warming 20% faster than the global average. This region has already reached the 1.5° Celsius increase in average temperature since the pre-industrial era—the threshold set by the 2015 Paris Climate Agreement to mitigate extreme weather events.
In central Sicily, the once-blooming fields around Salvatore Morreale’s farm are now arid and showing clear signs of desertification. Morreale blames not just the weather but also the authorities for not reacting sooner.
Sicilian farmers battle extreme drought
“When I was in school, there were already talks about the desertification of Sicily. So it’s not something that started today or yesterday. Politicians hold some responsibility because they could have thought about it before and tackled the problem,” he says.
Giuseppe Cirelli, an agricultural hydraulics professor at the University of Catania, says some areas of Sicily have experienced a 70% drop in rainfall over the last year compared to the previous twenty years. He also notes that many of the pipes and systems used to irrigate fields or distribute water to households are old and have not been modernized, resulting in significant volumes of water being lost. Earlier this year, local authorities imposed water restrictions on one million people across nearly 100 municipalities.
In the southern city of Gela, a family can only access water every three days. Floriana Callea says the water stored in tanks is insufficient for her family’s needs. “With the other residents of our neighborhood, we are all exasperated because this situation is truly frustrating and stressful,” she says.
Many locals believe Sicily’s ordeal should serve as a wake-up call for the rest of Europe. Some people deny climate change,” said farmer Gerardo, adding: “I think we cannot deny this anymore.
