A prolonged drought has reduced parts of the northern river, which feeds irrigation channels along the fertile valley, to their lowest levels in living memory.

"Entire fields are destroyed stretching for hundreds of hectares, it's a real disaster," said Ronaldo Manfredini of farmers' confederation Coldiretti.

Growers' losses are estimated at around 500 million euros (640 million dollars), according to Coldiretti.

"This winter, snowfall was light in the Alps, and very light rain was recorded in the spring. Because of that, reservoirs are at their lowest," Manfredini told AFP.

The 675-kilometre (420-mile) Po, the country's longest river, has dropped a record 7.41 metres (24.31 feet) below its normal level, near the city of Ferrara.

Another farmers' union, the Italian Confederation of Farmers, estimates the drought has already caused significant damage to traditional crops like cereals, maize, rice and soya.

Under pressure from farmers, the government introduced emergency measures last Friday, declaring a state of disaster in the Po valley and unleashing emergency reserves of water by opening dykes.

But experts are still concerned about water infrastructure in the region, severely hit by a record drought three years ago.

"The north of Italy is poorly equipped (with reservoirs) structurally for a simple reason, there has never been a need because the natural reserves have always been good," said Giulio Tuffarelli, an agronomist with Italy's national irrigation management unit, ANBI.

Another problem is that farmers are competing with hydro-electric power stations for water, he said.

The 2003 drought reduced the output of hydro-electric power stations, causing country-wide power cuts.

Farmers in southern Italy, where drought is an annual fact of life, have adapted better than their northern counterparts, according to Tuffarelli.

"Reservoirs there are much more numerous for historical reasons, otherwise agriculture simply wouldn't be viable," he said.

But farmers have also indirectly fallen foul of the centre-left government's economic policy, which has stalled a 1.6 billion euro "national irrigation plan" designed to overhaul the irrigation system between 2006 and 2008, as priority is given to slashing a runaway public deficit.

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