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The repercussions of the war in Ukraine are felt in the agricultural sector. Italy needs Ukrainian cereals for making pasta. So, some regions are abandoning tomato cultivation to try wheat.
In the south of Italy, it is the great agricultural reconversion. A cooperative, which until then processed limited quantities of cereals, could no longer satisfy the food industry. Because for its pasta, Italy had until then to rely on its Russian and Ukrainian imports. “Unfortunately, we only produce 40% of what we consume. This means that the remaining 60% we have to import from abroad”, explains Nicola Minichino, president of the agricultural cooperative of Taccone. 50 million tonnes of wheat could be missing, and cereal prices are soaring.
Pietro Disabato therefore decided to retrain and plant wheat where tomatoes had been growing until then. In the south of the country, 500,000 hectares are undergoing a crop change. “Last year, here, there were tomatoes everywhere (…), only tomatoes. Now there is only this field next to it, six hectares“, he explains.