Corn bye-bye in Italy, where the cultivation of the main food for cows, pigs, chickens, turkeys, geese and ducks has halved (-50%) in the past two decades due to production costs, climate change and foreign imports that expose Italy to the consequences of international tensions such as the war in Ukraine. This is according to a Coldiretti analysis. Corn, the staple of the diet for dairy and meat farms that supply the pantries of Italian families with products, is experiencing a profound crisis, Coldiretti explains, with areas falling from 1.06 million hectares in 2000 to just over 500,000 hectares in 2023 and grain production going from 10.2 million tons to 5.2 million tons in the same period. With a livestock stock of 6 million cattle and buffaloes, 8.5 million pigs, as many rabbits and more than 144 million chickens, turkeys, ducks and geese, Italy has a degree of self-sufficiency, compared to national corn requirements, of just 53 percent. The deficit is covered by imports that in 2022 reached a record 6.9 billion kilos with an increase of +30% over the previous year, while in the first seven months of 2023 we are already at 3.8 billion kilos imported from abroad. Plus geopolitical events, such as the war in Ukraine from which in the first seven months of 2023 we imported over 1.2 billion kilos of corn practically doubled compared to the same period last year.
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