Pasta of the future: Italy tests climate-resistant wheat

In the Emilia-Romagna region, Italy's "Food Valley", researchers are creating the pasta of the future by focusing on its main ingredient: wheat, France 24 reported this week. The work comes as Italy endures one of its most intense heatwaves on record, with nearly all major cities under red alert.

The research aims to develop wheat varieties that can withstand the hotter, drier conditions that climate models predict for the Mediterranean basin. Pasta, one of the world's most beloved staples, depends on durum wheat, a crop particularly sensitive to heat stress during its grain-filling phase.

For the Marche region, the implications are direct. Agriculture here, as across central Italy, relies on the same durum wheat that feeds the nation's pasta industry, and the same warming trends that are pushing temperatures toward 40C in Italian cities are already affecting yields inland.