Italy
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In Cammarata, in the interior of Sicily, as in the rest of the island, farmers lack water to operate their farms. This is due to the drought that has been raging for months and a faulty water distribution network.
Sometimes, when Odissea the cow sticks her nose into the automatic water trough in the stable, not a drop comes to tickle her nostrils. With her 99 fellow Sicilian Modicana cows, she is thirsty, much thirstier than usual. Since June 2023, drought has been devastating their farm in the hilly countryside of Cammarata, as in the rest of Sicily. With his skin tanned by the sun, Liborio Mangiapane distributes a few caresses to his little prides, like four generations of breeders before him.
The 10,000 liters of water that the 60-year-old farmer uses daily to water them and run his farm are no longer enough. So, once or twice a day, since May, he and his sons take their trucks to go and get more about ten kilometers away, from a private well urgently requisitioned by the mayor for the farmers. There he meets other colleagues forced to do the same. They have all been waiting for rain for months. A great classic of the Sicilian summer, drought is increasingly suffocating the island’s farmers. Its frequency and intensity have increased over the years due to climate change.
“If this continues, we will have to slaughter the animals. The lack of a constant flow of water
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