ROME, July 27 (Xinhua) -- Italy has been experiencing a drought for several weeks, and farmers and authorities are both sounding the alarm.
Chief of the General Confederation of Italian Agriculture (Confagricultura), Massimiliano Giansanti, ascribed the ongoing drought to climate change, and said "the lack of water for irrigation has jeopardized harvests and strongly compromised sowing" in Italy.
Confagricoltura represents 145,200 farms, 222,000 individual farmers, and 301,000 farming contractors across the country.
A week ago, Farm Minister Maurizio Martina announced emergency measures in response to the drought including activating the National Solidarity Fund for regions experiencing the exceptional climate conditions, suspending farmers' taxes and mortgage payments, summoning additional EU agricultural funds to a total 2.3 billion euros (2.68 billion U.S. dollars) by October.
There is also a plan to put out a tender for a 700-million-euro contract to overhaul the country's water supply systems that date back 30 years.
The deadline for that tender is Aug. 31, Martina said in a statement. "This is necessary in the medium term, in view of the increasing effects of climate change on our production," the minister said.
Also on Thursday, Environment Minister Gian Luca Galletti said regional and local authorities were working to avoid water rationing in the nation's capital.
"(Rationing) is not acceptable," Italian news agency Ansa quoted the minister as saying. "The Rome situation is the one we are most worried about at the moment...The objective is to avoid rationing."
The average yearly temperature in Italy marked a new record in 2016, rising by 1.35 degrees Celsius compared to the period from 1961 to 1990, according to the farm ministry.
Temperatures throughout the country have risen 3.2 degrees Celsius above the national average this summer, while rainfall dropped by 55 percent in June compared to the average in previous years, the ministry said. (1 euro = 1.17 U.S. dollars)
