As tourists savored icy granitas under hibiscus trees and swam in the cool Mediterranean Sea, in the farmlands of southern Sicily, among hillsides so scorched they resembled desert dunes, a farmer watched recently as his cows headed to the slaughterhouse.
After months of drought, he didn’t have any water or food to give them.
“It’s devastating,” said the farmer, Lorenzo Iraci Sareri, as tears fell on his tanned face, lined by 40 years of labor pasturing cows. “I have never seen something like this.”
Parts of southern Italy and other Mediterranean regions, including Greece and the southeastern Spain, are experiencing one of their worst droughts in decades. It is particularly devastating, experts say, because the lack of rainfall has been made worse by the higher temperatures caused by climate change.
Artificial basins where animals used to drink offer little but cracked earth. Wheat ears are small and hollow. Pergusa Lake in central Sicily, part of a natural reserve, resembles a pale, dry crater.