FAREWELL TO THE GREEN GOLD OF PONTINA
The daily drama experienced among the rows of kiwi trees in the Agro Pontino, one of the country’s green lungs. Climate change and “die-off”-a disease with unclear origins-have brought the local production system, which has relied on this fruit for more than four decades, to its knees. To date, Italy is on the global podium for kiwi cultivation after China and New Zealand. The Agro Pontino area generates 33 percent of national production. A supremacy, however, put at risk by the climate catastrophe. “We are confronted daily with environmental disaster. We have to defend ourselves in every way, however, it is becoming more and more difficult,” says Domenica Campoli, a farmer in the area.