Farewell to the days of the merla: already flowery mimosas and water bombs

There were once the days of the merla. The days that traditionally should, the conditional is a must, be the coldest of the year. But then the eye falls on mimosa plants who flowed well in advance of March 8, an explosion of yellow that disorieves us so much that we already feel the scent of spring.

The tradition of the days of the merla (29-30-31 of January) takes its name from a white blackbird who took refuge in a fireplace to escape the frost. After three days he left the chimney, completely black. Since then all the blackbirds have been black. Legends precisely that collide with the scientific evidence of climate change cHe crowned 2024 as the hottest year since 1955 in our region with a Increase in average temperatures of 1.3 degrees.

Increasingly recurring seasonal expansions which, together with snow-free winters and increasingly hot summers, feed the eco-anxiety of the Tuscans: for three out of ten climate change are the first concern. To say it is Coldiretti Toscana on the basis of an online survey according to which the climatic emergency comes before war, health and work.

Italians resigned on climate change

The beginning of 2025 confirms the tendency to overheating and tropicalization that manifests itself, as in the past few hours, with the arrival of violent disturbances accompanied by water bombs that paralyze cities and from temperatures higher than seasonal averages. It is therefore not surprising that 69% of Italians are now resigned to the fact that it is necessary to get used to living with i risks of environmental catastrophes and adverse weather events, according to a Coldiretti/Censis investigation.

A scenario that emphasizes the urgency of running for cover to mitigate the risks deriving from extreme events, more and more unpredictable and frequent, with Intense rains that unload one month rainfall in a few hours And long periods of heat and aridity that favor the fires and bring the countryside to their knees. Agriculture – continues Coldiretti Toscana – is the economic activity that more than all the others lives daily the consequences of climate change with the damage caused by bad weather and drought that costs every year hundreds of millions of euros to Tuscan farmers And that, together with the increase in production costs and the increasingly reduced margins, represent the most serious and imminent threat to Tuscan agriculture.

The project with the Tuscany Region

Faced with the increasingly evident impacts of climate change, Coldiretti Toscana is working with the Tuscany region to simplify the recovering the thousands of small invades down and provide resources to farmers to reactivate them. Small invades and ponds, alongside the large reservoirsit would allow to guarantee water in periods of drought but also to limit the impact on the soil of increasingly violent rains and downpours that accentuate the tendency to slide of water in dry channels.

Coldiretti Toscana’s goal is to exponentially increase the collection of rainwater, guaranteeing its availability for civil uses, agricultural production and to generate clean hydroelectric energy, also contributing to the speed of excess rains and preventing the risk of flooding. But not only. We must continue to invest in precision agricultureon technology and artificial intelligence, As well as on new agronomic techniques and research to put agricultural companies in conditions to produce more, better and less use of resources and production inputs.