It is still too early to say that the season is safe, just as it is too early to say that it was disastrous: the 2022 rice campaign at the beginning of October is still very variable, because in the more than 115,000 hectares of rice fields in Piedmont there are those who he has finished threshing rice, for example those who have sown early, and those who have just started. Or who has not yet taken the field with combines. So many unknowns, therefore, in the most important rice-growing district in Europe, formed by the provinces of Vercelli, Novara and Pavia, the golden triangle of Italian rice. Waiting to understand the yield in the fields and the transformation, and the quality of the grains, we are already starting with a deficit of about 26,000 hectares of rice fields lost between Piedmont and Lombardy due to drought: most of the fields totally unproductive, about 23,000 hectares, are concentrated in the Pavese, Lodigiano and Milanese areas, the remaining 3,000 in the Novara area. Save in extremis, as regards the lack of water, the province of Vercelli, for the greater proximity to the waterways and the entrance to the Cavour Canal.
However, guaranteeing an adequate water supply may not mean having a quality and quantity in line with past years: the extreme temperatures of the summer have hit everywhere, conditioning the harvest. «The yields both in the field and during processing are very variable – says the president of Coldiretti Vercelli Biella, Paolo Dellarole -, based on the availability of water and also on the flowering period; there are varieties, especially the Lunghi A and those for risotto, which have particularly suffered from the high temperatures during the flowering phase, and therefore at the moment very low yields are found. The Indica rices (the long and aromatic ones) are a little more stable, in terms of yields, as are the Tondi: it seems that the yields are not so low, but not so high when processed. The heat and the lack of water seem to have affected almost all the varieties ». The fact remains that the one in progress «is a very anomalous year – adds Dellarole -: production in quintals seems to be normal in areas where there were no water problems. On the other hand, where there have been problems, a decline in production is recorded. We are not talking about areas where the water is no longer seen, but areas where the water arrived with a frequency of 15-20 days ».
A fluctuating judgment also from the Risi National Authority, the government body with the Castello d’Agogna Research Center which has the task of protecting and promoting Made in Italy: if ten days ago the president Paolo Carrà spoke of “not exciting returns, even below average “, now the number one of Ente Risi, also a farmer, corrects the game:” In general, the yield to processing and production are patchy, but the yield to processing is improving. The excessive heat – underlines Carrà – has created problems with fertilization and has accelerated the ripening of the rice too much, causing drops ».
The director of Ente Risi, Roberto Magnaghi, does not hide behind a finger, admitting: «This year there will be little rice to process and market. Agricultural organizations are working with the Ministry to find a solution to the drought problem, which has been very much felt. The goal is to find a rice cultivation system that can use water in an increasingly conscious way. But rice cannot and will not disappear in our areas: this territory would go back to being a swamp, or in any case it would be turned to much more difficult crops. We remember that rice does not consume water: it takes it from the glaciers, puts it in the field and finally puts it back into the Po ».
What to do to avoid the disappearance of rice, a hypothesis which however remains quite remote? The same agricultural organizations, irrigation consortia, rice industries and the Piedmont and Lombardy Regions gathered around a table to take advantage of this year’s crisis and study new solutions for future years. Ente Risi has proposed to act as the control room to let all the most important companies in the world of rice talk to each other. And so it was a few days ago in the Research Center of Castello d’Agogna, in the Pavia area, where some proposals were made. The first is to submerge the fields at the time of sowing, between March and April, limiting the practice of dry sowing. Hence the practice, increasingly widespread because it involves less management costs of the field, of sowing when the field is dry and of flooding 1-2 months later, towards the end of May and the beginning of June. The initial submersion would allow the water table to be recharged already in the months of March-April, while with dry weather this occurs with about a month and a half or two of delay, therefore at the end of May. The danger, already experienced this year, is to have a large demand for water at the same time, in a period in which the water resource is starting to become scarce.
The drought, then, is added to a period of strong increases for the approximately 3,800 Italian rice farms, mostly concentrated in the Pavia, Novara and Vercelli rice districts. In addition to the increases in diesel fuel at the beginning of the year, there were increases in raw materials, fertilizers and expenses for gas and electricity: “Agricultural businesses are absolutely unable to absorb further increases in energy costs – report from Confagricoltura Piemonte – which, only in first three months of this year, they increased by more than 18% on the same period of 2021. Without the freezing of the gas price at European level, and the introduction of new measures to support liquidity, there is a risk that a large number of entrepreneurs in the sector are forced to suspend or reduce their production activity. Consequently, supplies to markets and processing industries would decrease, to the benefit of imports from countries where energy costs are lower ”.