Time to stock up on parmesan cheese?

Several weeks ago I read an article about the ongoing drought in Italy and the falling levels of the Po river.  My immediate thought was of all the amazing artifacts that must be coming to light in the riverbed - probably more interesting than the dead bodies in Lake Mead.

But TIL that the drought there may impact the production of parmesan:

An unusually dry winter meant snow melt was scarce and spring rains only sporadic, which has led to the worst drought in the northern regions of Italy in more than 70 years, a regional agency for the River Po confirmed.  As a result, the Po is hitting record low water levels, according to the European Space Agency...

At Simone Minelli's dairy farm along the banks of the river near Mantova, the prospect is grim. Water is an essential part of the operation to feed his herd of 300 Friesian cattle, he told CNN.  His milk cows produce 30 liters (6.6 gallons) of milk each a day that is transformed into this region's authentic Parmigiano Reggiano parmesan cheese. If his cows don't each drink between 100 and 150 liters (22 to 33 gallons) of water a day or are overheated, the milk won't meet the rigid standards, and the cheese won't be given the coveted seal of approval.

But a bigger concern than the water in their troughs is what they'll eat...

"The last time the river was low was 2003," she told CNN. "This time it is much, much worse. There is a lack of rain, no snow, and high temperatures," she said. "It creates the famous perfect storm. We are in extreme crisis."

Updated from just two weeks ago to add excerpts from a Guardian article about the ecologic disaster that is the Po. 

But when you paddle and pedal the Po now, its banks are desolate. I travelled from the delta to the source over nine months by canoe, bike, foot and car and it was an industrial rust belt...

Every industry along the Po seemed to stain or change it. Its waters were used to cool power stations, so red-and-white chimneys are often, along with pylons, the most prominent sights from the canoe. Star cucumber (known as zucca pazza or “mad pumpkin”) was introduced from the Americas to give shade to Italian orchards, but the plant went rogue and now covers the floodplains like a lumpy silk carpet. The ugly wels catfish has almost entirely eradicated the native sturgeon, source of the once-prized Po caviar. Canadian poplars were introduced and now stand like regimented troops, all parallel and perpendicular...

During my journey the air quality was, if anything, even worse than that of the water. The polythene sky of the Padanian plain through winter is partly the result of thick fogs, but those fogs also occur because of the habit of drenching farmland in nitrogen fertilisers that then volatilise to form ammonium salts... The fears of Po-side humans were always focused on floods, but suddenly centuries of architecture and literature seem redundant because we now we have exactly the opposite fear: not an excess, but a lack, of water.