L'Italo-Americano

LIFESTYLE FASHION FOOD ARTS DESIGN www.italoamericano.org 8 THURSDAY, OCTOBER 14, 2021 L'Italo-Americano E ven during the hardest times, t h e r e i s something that n e v e r c h a n g e s in Italy, we have plenty of p a s t a i n t h e l a r d e r : i t ' s cheap, versatile, and makes everyone happy. When the country went into lockdown for the first time, in March 2020, pasta was the first product, followed by flour, bottled water and, of course, t o i l e t p a p e r , t o f l y o f f supermarkets shelves. Like coffee, pasta is a natural of the Italian kitchen, and it's as normal to find it in the p r e s s a s i t i s t o f i n d toothpaste in the bathroom or a blanket in the bedroom. B u t w h a t i f t h i n g s changed? The increasingly hot and dry climate of the past few years has been damaging w h e a t . A s r e p o r t e d b y B l o o m b e r g , t h i s y e a r ' s d r o u g h t , a l o n g w i t h t h e heat, hurt considerably the harvest of wheat in Canada, the world's largest producer of the cereal. This came only a handful of months after Russian wheat was damaged by a particularly cold winter. E u r o p e d i d n ' t d o m u c h better, with its own crops suffering heavily from the f l o o d i n g r a i n s o f l a s t s u m m e r . I t ' s e v e n w o r s e when it comes to durum wheat, the grain used to m a k e p a s t a i n I t a l y : according to data, only 1/10 o f t h e w o r l d ' s w h e a t p r o d u c t i o n i s d u r u m , a variety only grown in some p a r t s o f C a n a d a , t h e U S , France, and Italy. Because durum wheat is particularly delicate, it tends to suffer more from drastic weather conditions, which means the past year's extreme heat and f r e q u e n t f l o o d s d r o v e i t s p r i c e h i g h e r a n d h i g h e r . There is more, because the p a n d e m i c c r e a t e d h i g h e r d e m a n d s , w h i c h i n t u r n emptied storehouses, and this is without taking into a c c o u n t t h e p r o b l e m s caused to the supply chain b y t r a v e l b a n s a n d limitations. Today, durum wheat costs a whopping 500 euro (600 USD) per metric ton, almost twice as much as it did last year: it is the first time such a price has been reached. But what is the deal with d u r u m w h e a t p r i c e s a n d p a s t a ? W e l l , i t a l l c o m e s down to a 1 9 6 7 d e c r e e , known in Italy as the "purity law," which states that all d r i e d p a s t a s o l d i n t h e country must be made with durum wheat, as its flour produces a pasta that holds b e t t e r w h e n c o o k i n g a n d does not get gluey nor too soft. I n a n i n t e r v i e w w i t h Xinhua, China's main news agency, Silvia Piconcelli of Confagricoltura explains t h a t I t a l y ' s m a i n p a s t a makers have been delaying price increases because they a r e a f r a i d o f l o s i n g c u s t o m e r s t o o t h e r c o m p a n i e s , w h i c h m a y m a n a g e t o h o l d c u r r e n t prices for longer. They can do so because they are still covered by bulk contracts, through which they are still covered for months, if not years, without any need for renegotiation: all they do is buying smaller quantities of durum wheat, to "top up" w h a t t h e y h a v e . " F o r s u p p l i e r s w o r k i n g w i t h contracts signed in 2018 or 2019, the prices are low and the durum wheat producers have to honor the terms of those contracts," Piconcelli e x p l a i n s , " B u t a s t h o s e c o n t r a c t s e x p i r e , t h e economic impacts will be larger." Italian pasta producers are worried. I n a n i n t e r v i e w w i t h Italian daily Il Sole 24 Ore, G i u s e p p e F e r r o , c h i e f e x e c u t i v e o f f i c e r o f L a M o l i s a n a , o n e o f I t a l y ' s m a i n p a s t a p r o d u c i n g companies, explains how his family, who's been in the pasta-making business for over a century, has " never experienced a situation like t h i s . " F e r r o c o n t i n u e s , s t a t i n g t h a t b i g p a s t a p r o d u c e r s h a v e b e e n stocking up grain, as it can last for up to two years in storage, but the same can't be said of wheat semolina - an essential ingredient for p a s t a - w h i c h l a s t s o n l y a month. If things continue this way, Ferro concludes, pasta prices will rise already before Christmas. Similar is the opinion of R i c c a r d o F e l i c e t t i , o f Felicetti Pasta, president of the Italian Food Union, who declared to Corriere della Sera that prices could rise to 6 0 0 e u r o ( 7 2 0 U S D ) p e r metric ton by the end of the y e a r . I f t h i s h a p p e n s , a l l producers, from the smallest to the largest, will feel the hit. To Fortune, Felicetti e x p l a i n s t h a t " W e r i s k r e a c h i n g u n s u s t a i n a b l e l e v e l s f o r d u r u m w h e a t p r i c e s . S o f a r w e a r e m a n a g i n g . B u t i f p r i c e s continue to rise, the impacts are going to be very costly." What would this mean for u s c o n s u m e r s ? A h i g h e r p r i c e t a g , b o t h a t t h e s u p e r m a r k e t a n d t h e restaurant, as pointed out to F o r t u n e b y A n g e l o B o c c a n e r a o f E n o t e c a Corsi, in Rome, who believes t h a t t h e y m a y h a v e t o increase their pasta dishes prices by 1 or 2 euro (about 1.15 to 2.30 USD) if the price of dried pasta rises like that of durum wheat. It may not seem much but, in the long run, it could make a huge difference, especially when considering that restaurants are among the businesses that suffered the pandemic the most, and that durum wheat is not only used to make pasta, but also some k i n d s o f b r e a d a n d o t h e r Mediterranean staples like couscous. Climate change and the pandemic are behind the rise in the price of wheat that could cause a spike in pasta prices very soon (Photo: Anna Yakymenko/Dreamstime) The war for pasta: can higher wheat prices endanger Italy's most iconic dish? LUCA SIGNORINI

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