The drought of the year 2024, with the water crisis that followed,
resulted in a reduction in the availability of drinking water for the
populations and irrigation water for farmers and manifested itself with
greater intensity in the territories of southern Italy and particularly
in the internal areas of Sicily, where in addition to the economic
damage for farmers it had effects of social and psychological discomfort
on the populations, such as despair and a sense of impotence in the face
of the concrete possibility of seeing their animals and plants die due
to a lack of water.
There have been other hot and muggy summers in the past, but this one
was particularly difficult because it came after a mild winter and with
a very low amount of rain, which was not enough to recharge the
underground aquifers and fill the artificial basins, especially the dams.
This drought has particularly affected marginal areas that are already
difficult due to low economic profitability and quality of life, inland
areas where the main economic activities revolve around the practice of
agriculture, both in the cultivation of plants and in the breeding of
animals and in the related processing activities.
Personally, in my activity as a farmer, this summer I found myself
facing a drought situation never seen before in the area where I carry
out the activity in a family-run business.
Already in winter, due to the lack of rain, cereal and legume crops
could not develop; in spring it was understood that there would be no
production and that there would be no harvest at the beginning of summer.
For tree crops, citrus and olive trees, where it was possible to
intervene with emergency irrigation, this was only possible for a
certain period, until the water tables of the wells were lowered or
exhausted.
So it was a period in which day after day we saw the availability of
water for irrigation decrease and, therefore, the plants subjected to
water stress will not guarantee the production expectations.
So we live with the anxiety and insecurity of tomorrow, of how to move
forward in the future with an agricultural activity of growing crops
that are highly dependent on climatic conditions. And every year that
passes seems to no longer have a regularity and a normal course of the
seasons.
This premise is necessary to understand how in another agriculture and
in another possible world the reactions of those involved in the sector
and of the populations would have been different.
When you find yourself farming in a context where the production system
is centered on the principles of the capitalist economy, that is, on
practices that put profit at all costs, competition, the indiscriminate
exploitation of nature first, when all agricultural practices, in order
to obtain high production, tolerate environmental damage and are a
contributing cause of the breaking of the balance with the natural
environment that hosts and guarantees life: then you realize that in the
face of a natural disaster you are alone and the feeling of fear and the
perception of no longer having a future prevails.
A future that most people do not see in a global scenario and in an
overall vision, because they are convinced that the single action and
individual choice cannot influence the overall quality of life on earth.
We operate in an economic system that favors the management of
agricultural activities based on the culture of individualism,
selfishness and competition, rather than on the practice of
collectivism, based on the principles of collaboration, solidarity and
mutual support.
It would have been different to be able to count on a society that
leaves no one alone and behind, that guarantees everyone the possibility
of having the minimum necessary to live a dignified life, and that in
the event of a disaster triggers that spontaneous and self-organized
solidarity from below that gives you a sense of harmonious belonging to
the surrounding environment that hosts and allows life to human beings
and all living beings.
Carmelino Rondinella
http://sicilialibertaria.it
_________________________________________
A - I N F O S N E W S S E R V I C E
By, For, and About Anarchists
Send news reports to A-infos-en mailing list
A-infos-en@ainfos.ca
resulted in a reduction in the availability of drinking water for the
populations and irrigation water for farmers and manifested itself with
greater intensity in the territories of southern Italy and particularly
in the internal areas of Sicily, where in addition to the economic
damage for farmers it had effects of social and psychological discomfort
on the populations, such as despair and a sense of impotence in the face
of the concrete possibility of seeing their animals and plants die due
to a lack of water.
There have been other hot and muggy summers in the past, but this one
was particularly difficult because it came after a mild winter and with
a very low amount of rain, which was not enough to recharge the
underground aquifers and fill the artificial basins, especially the dams.
This drought has particularly affected marginal areas that are already
difficult due to low economic profitability and quality of life, inland
areas where the main economic activities revolve around the practice of
agriculture, both in the cultivation of plants and in the breeding of
animals and in the related processing activities.
Personally, in my activity as a farmer, this summer I found myself
facing a drought situation never seen before in the area where I carry
out the activity in a family-run business.
Already in winter, due to the lack of rain, cereal and legume crops
could not develop; in spring it was understood that there would be no
production and that there would be no harvest at the beginning of summer.
For tree crops, citrus and olive trees, where it was possible to
intervene with emergency irrigation, this was only possible for a
certain period, until the water tables of the wells were lowered or
exhausted.
So it was a period in which day after day we saw the availability of
water for irrigation decrease and, therefore, the plants subjected to
water stress will not guarantee the production expectations.
So we live with the anxiety and insecurity of tomorrow, of how to move
forward in the future with an agricultural activity of growing crops
that are highly dependent on climatic conditions. And every year that
passes seems to no longer have a regularity and a normal course of the
seasons.
This premise is necessary to understand how in another agriculture and
in another possible world the reactions of those involved in the sector
and of the populations would have been different.
When you find yourself farming in a context where the production system
is centered on the principles of the capitalist economy, that is, on
practices that put profit at all costs, competition, the indiscriminate
exploitation of nature first, when all agricultural practices, in order
to obtain high production, tolerate environmental damage and are a
contributing cause of the breaking of the balance with the natural
environment that hosts and guarantees life: then you realize that in the
face of a natural disaster you are alone and the feeling of fear and the
perception of no longer having a future prevails.
A future that most people do not see in a global scenario and in an
overall vision, because they are convinced that the single action and
individual choice cannot influence the overall quality of life on earth.
We operate in an economic system that favors the management of
agricultural activities based on the culture of individualism,
selfishness and competition, rather than on the practice of
collectivism, based on the principles of collaboration, solidarity and
mutual support.
It would have been different to be able to count on a society that
leaves no one alone and behind, that guarantees everyone the possibility
of having the minimum necessary to live a dignified life, and that in
the event of a disaster triggers that spontaneous and self-organized
solidarity from below that gives you a sense of harmonious belonging to
the surrounding environment that hosts and allows life to human beings
and all living beings.
Carmelino Rondinella
http://sicilialibertaria.it
_________________________________________
A - I N F O S N E W S S E R V I C E
By, For, and About Anarchists
Send news reports to A-infos-en mailing list
A-infos-en@ainfos.ca
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