‘The land is becoming desert’: drought pushes Sicily’s farming heritage to the brink

While tourists flock to the Italian island in greater numbers, a water crisis is intensifying for its rural population

For the first time in four generations of his family's farming history, Vito Amantia's threshers have lain silent this year. The 650,000kg of wheat that his farm would usually produce in a year has been lost, parched and withered under the scorching sun and relentless drought.

A seasoned farmer doesn't need to check the weather forecast to understand what the weather will be like," says Amantia, 68, who farms on the Catania plain in eastern Sicily. Already last January, I knew it would be a disastrous year. The wheat seedlings that normally reached 80cm stopped at 5cm. Then they dried up."