Italy, rice basket of Europe

Italians do not live by pasta alone, as rice growers in the northern Po Valley are quick to remind visitors, tempting them with platters of risotto milanese.

Rice cultivation in the region dates back to the days of Leonardo Da Vinci and owes its beginnings to the efforts of the Renaissance genius.

It was in 1482 that Da Vinci began work for Milan's Duke Ludovic Le More, a scion of the Sforza dynasty, who asked him to develop a network of irrigation canals around the powerful duchy.

Apart from occasional holdups over fears that the rice paddies encouraged malaria-bearing mosquitoes, cultivation went from strength to strength in the valley, spreading to the neighbouring Piedmont region thanks to a canal built in the 19th century.

Northern Italy is not an ideal region for rice growing.

"The availability of water allowed us to overcome other obstacles we have here such as temperatures that are not high enough," said Anna Del Ciello, a marketing expert at the Italian Rice Board.

Nevertheless, the Po Valley today boasts nearly 240,000 hectares (600,000 acres) of rice farms with an annual output of 1.4 million tonnes, more than half of Europe's production.

In Vigevano, near Milan, Carlo Marchesani and his nephew Ricardo grow rice on a farm extending 110 hectares along the Po.

Their automated techniques are far from the romantic images of the 1949 film "Riso Amaro" (Bitter Rice) by Giuseppe De Santis in which women rice workers harvest the grain by hand.

Marchesani, 60, says he will "never grow old" thanks to his rice, which he claims is more lucrative than any other crop.

Indeed, unlike other agricultural products such as milk, Italian rice has been largely spared by the global financial crisis, even though the price of 100 kilos (220 pounds) has dropped to 40 euros (60 dollars) from a high of 50 euros last year, Marchesani said.

The origins of Italian rice are a matter of conjecture. It may have first reached Italian shores in Sicily, introduced by Arab traders, or it may have been brought to the Milan region by the seafaring Venetians.

The main varieties grown in the Po Valley are arborio and carnaroli, whose small, round, highly absorbent grains are ideal for risotto.

Legend has it that Milan's bright yellow speciality risotto, coloured with saffron, was the result of a happy accident.

A leading 16th-century stained-glass window artist is said to have inadvertently dropped a bit of saffron - a pigment used in the glass of Milan's famous cathedral - into the rice he was cooking for his daughter's wedding.

One-third of Italy's rice is sold internally, with the rest mainly exported to other European countries.

Asian varieties make up a growing share of the production, now standing at some 30 percent as a result of a push in the 1990s by Brussels to get Italy to respond better to European demand.

Marchesani said he has resisted the pressure.

"If the Asians came to Milan and tasted a risotto, they wouldn't eat their rice anymore," he grinned. AFP