Fruit and vegetable crisis: salad and tomatoes are in short supply due to the extreme climate

Little salad and few tomatoes. Italian consumers are finding it increasingly difficult to find these two vegetables in the supermarket. The reason? The excessive heat of the months of July and August. Vegetables such as carrots, courgettes and onions are saved, of which there is no shortage.

Extreme climatic events - such as heavy storms and/or hail - which are increasingly frequent, combined with above-average temperatures and alternating with periods of drought, have increased the uncertainty of harvests. Salad, in particular, and tomatoes, in part, are the vegetables that are most affected by temperature variations: heat waves have delayed cultivation cycles and lowered yields in fields and greenhouses. At the same time, the quantities of product unsuitable for sale - waste - are growing. Another effect of climate change is the appearance of alien insects, such as the Asian bug, which cause damage to crops.

Confagricoltura confirms the data from the Italian Food Union: agricultural volumes have reduced, product availability has dropped by up to 40% and waste due to failure to achieve quality standards has increased by 20%. The Istat estimates follow, which record a structural decline in salad production in Italy of -10.5% in the years 2019-2023.

The increase in production costs linked to current geopolitical tensions is affecting the situation. Agricultural diesel, as Coldiretti underlines, is used not only to power tractors and other machinery necessary for harvesting vegetables, but also to operate irrigation systems, which have become indispensable given the now frequent periods of drought.

As Davide Vernocchi, president of the fruit and vegetable sector of Confcooperative, explains, this period of difficulty for fourth range products - fresh and packaged fruit and vegetables ready to be consumed, such as bagged salad - could lead farmers to give priority to other crops. This would result in a smaller number of fields dedicated to the production of the former.