Drought Threatens Italy’s Rice Belt as Water Supplies Fall to Historic Lows
Impact of Drought on Italy’s Rice Production
By Matteo Negri
BREME, Italy, Aug 10 (Reuters) - On Giuseppe Tagliabue's estate on the Lombardy side of the Po River, the yellow of ripening rice plants gives way to the barren brown of fields where the crop, left without water for weeks, never reached maturity.
Tagliabue's Cascina Rinalda is one of roughly 3,500 Italian rice farms, mostly concentrated in the Po Valley, facing the challenges of prolonged heatwaves and scarce rainfall, which have reduced water availability during the irrigation season.
Farmers Forced to Make Difficult Choices
"Because of this terrible water shortage, we had to make some rather drastic choices," Tagliabue said. To avoid jeopardising the entire harvest, he decided to channel all available water to part of his land, abandoning the remaining plots.
Italy’s Rice Belt: A Regional Overview
Italy is Europe's largest rice producer, with about 235,000 hectares planted in 2025, according to the national rice authority. More than 80% of the crop is grown in the northern provinces of Pavia, Vercelli and Novara, which have long thrived on the Po basin.
Water Shortages and Drought Severity
This year, however, the Po River Basin Authority has issued a high level of drought severity, warning that reserves in the Alpine lakes are running low. Lake Maggiore is now classified as being in extreme drought conditions, while water levels in the Po recently fell to a record low for the time of year in Cremona.
Long accustomed to abundant water supplies, Italy's rice belt has been forced to adopt an unprecedented response to save the season, which locals say is proving even harder than the severe drought of 2022.
Innovative Irrigation Strategies
"This year, we had to introduce a rotation system," said Franco Bullano, director of water management at the Est Sesia irrigation consortium, which supplies much of the rice-growing area between Lombardy and Piedmont. Under the scheme, different sections receive water in alternating weeks, allowing scarce resources to be shared across the region.
With the new system in place, Tagliabue hopes to get a decent harvest from the fields he is still cultivating. He is unsure, however, that he will recoup the costs of planting the fields he abandoned.
Economic Impact on Farmers
According to the local branch of the Confagricoltura farmers' association, the Pavia rice sector could lose over €100 million ($116 million) due to a combination of drought, rising production costs and falling paddy rice prices amid competition from non-European Union exporters.
The Struggle to Continue Growing Rice
Adapting to a Changing Climate
Bullano said the rotation system has helped shield most of the area from the worst effects of the drought. But irrigation remains possible largely because Alpine ice reserves continue to melt as temperatures rise.
Reviving Traditional Practices
As snow melts earlier in a warming climate, farmers are discussing reviving practices that have largely fallen out of use, such as winter flooding, which requires water when it is more available.
Yet that might not be enough.
Exploring New Water Management Solutions
"We only retain 10 to 11% of rainfall," Bullano said. Although reservoirs are being considered, they could take decades to build. Est Sesia and its engineers are instead working on a storage basin designed to maintain a steady downstream flow.
Others, including Confagricoltura Pavia director Alberto Lasagna, advocate a "water farming" model that would use the soil as a natural reservoir, storing water beneath rice fields for use during droughts.
Preserving a Generational Legacy
For farmers like Tagliabue, any solution is preferable to giving up rice cultivation on the estate his family has run for three generations.
"Our farms are entirely geared towards rice, from the dryers to the machinery," he said. "Changing crops means changing many other things as well. It's not that easy."
($1 = 0.8651 euros)
(Additional reporting by Remo Casilli and Alex Fraser;Editing by Emelia Sithole-Matarise)
