Northern Italy’s Po basin is heading towards a food and water emergency, with the region’s climate monitors warning that a fourth poor winter could leave rice, maize and vegetable harvests short by as much as 2.4 million tonnes in 2027. Reservoirs and canals are holding just 38% of their usual late-September supply, while rainfall over the past 18 months has run 44% below the long-term median.
At a stone gauge outside Trino, farmer Nabila Riyanti returned on Saturday to mark four years since local irrigation channels were shut during the 2022 drought. Then, a stranger collapsed from heat beside the canal and Riyanti helped revive him; today, the 48-year-old is known locally as the woman who gave a stranger another chance.
The basin’s shrinking reserve
The Po Basin Climate Observatory says its latest projections show a 60% chance that winter rain and snowfall will fall below 70% of average. If precipitation stays under that threshold through February, the worst-case model puts rice output down 32%, maize down 27% and vegetable production down 18% across the basin and nearby agricultural districts.
“This is not a dry spell that one wet weekend can fix,” said Kartik Sinha, a hydrologist who helped prepare the forecast. “The soil profile is already depleted, groundwater is falling, and the mountains are carrying too little stored water into the cold season.”
We can still choose what gets water first, but we cannot pretend there is enough for every field.
Nabila Riyanti, rice farmer
Riyanti’s own move has startled neighbours who recall her rescuing the unknown traveller at the 2022 channel shutdown. She has agreed to leave 11 hectares (27 acres) of her rice land unplanted next spring and redirect her farm’s allocation to a shared reserve serving 40 farms and two small towns.
Rationing enters the debate
The regional water board is weighing temporary limits on irrigation pumps, priority supplies for household taps and a voluntary shift away from water-intensive crops. Its chair, Frida Abshire, said households should not expect immediate restrictions and that drinking-water supplies were “secure for the coming months”.
Sinha warned that reassurance has a short shelf life. The board’s own planning range, he said, assumes no major household cuts only if winter precipitation reaches at least 80% of average; below that, emergency limits could be needed before the spring planting season. The two forecasts use different thresholds, not different weather records.
The cost is already being counted. The observatory estimates that a 20% decline in the basin’s main crops could put €640 million (about $710 million) in farm revenue at risk, before higher prices reach food processors and shoppers. Irrigation groups are due to meet on 5 October to decide how to divide the remaining reserve.
For Riyanti, the anniversary is no ceremony. She keeps a shallow metal tray by the canal gate, where the waterline was marked during the 2022 shutdown. “That line was where we thought the crisis ended,” she said. “Now we are measuring how much we can save before it begins again.”
