Production in northern Italy is suffering under drought conditions which are having a particularly serious effect on fruit crops.

According to Italian farming association CIA, some 20 per cent of fruit crops have been lost across lines such as apricot, plum, apple and pear. Watermelon and melon production has been even more seriously damaged and half the volumes of these crops have been lost.

Salad crops have also been hard hit and CIA is lobbying hard for action to avert a crisis on the scale of 2003’s drought.

The association, which represents farmers and growers, warned that there are only 10 days of water left for crops and livestock and that levels of the Po river and regional reservoirs are too low to provide adequate irrigation.

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