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When Life Gives Sicily Coffees Although it was a hard year for
many traditional crops, Sicily saw
Sicily is also called the Land of Oranges (or
sometimes Land of Lemons) as it produces abun- its first coffee harvest with 30
dance of lemons and oranges every year.
Sicily’s climate is typically Mediterranean, dry kilos of coffee cherries.
in the summer and mild in the winter. It rains
mainly in autumn and spring, and in summer tem-
peratures reaching 35/40 degrees CelsiusC can be
experienced. However, because of the presence of
mountains, the climate can vary based on the alti-
tude and the exposure to the dominant winds.
Climate change in recent years has given this
place a new story. Just like what Michael Hoffman
noted in his book Our Changing Menu, “Take your
computer and type in climate change followed by
your favorite food, and you will, half the time, get
a climate change story affecting your favorite food.”
Such climate change leads to a drop in Sicilian
production of traditional fruits, like oranges,
which has pushed local farmers to look for alter-
native veggies to grow, including coffee. According
to the Italian farmers’ association Coldiretti, there
are currently 1,000 hectares of exotic fruit estates
in Italy. The number has tripled in the last few
years. And the great news is that Italians are eating
more and more of their own exotic fruits with an
annual consumption of 900,000 tonnes.
“Tropical fruit plantations began showing
up long ago. Over here we see plants such as
moringa or maracuja that won’t grow that easi-
ly in other regions of Italy. Regarding the hor-
ticulture they need, just like coffee, less water
irrigation as well as the advantage of not using
insecticides and pesticides like in regular hor-
ticulture,” Adriano said.
However, the climate crisis is transforming
the environment in the Mediterranean more quick-
ly than in other parts of the world, and the rate
of temperature increase in the area is 20% higher
than the rest of the planet.
Last summer, Sicily saw the highest tempera-
ture ever recorded in Europe: 48.8 degrees Cel-
siusC in the town of Syracuse, 0.8 degrees CelsiusC
higher than the previous European record. Al-
though it was a hard year for many traditional
crops, Sicily saw its first coffee harvest with 30
kilos of coffee cherries. It was produced by the
Morettino family who had been trying to produce
their own coffee on a small piece of land in Sicily’s
western side for 30 years.

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