Crova (Italy) (AFP) – Four hundred years after monks transformed a patch of marshlands in northwest Italy into rice fields, farmer Alice Cerutti has restored a third to their natural state, prioritising biodiversity over crop yield.
Golden rice fields stretch across the Vercelli plain between Milan and Turin, a parcelled landscape broken only by the wood and wetlands created by Cerutti, now home to rare birds and insects.
"We have planted over 10,000 native plants, such as oaks, alders, ash, and hornbeams. It is amazing to see how quickly nature responds," Cerutti told AFP, as she stood in a coppice set around a natural spring.
"Since the first trees were planted, there has been a spectacular increase in butterflies, dragonflies, and biodiversity in general," said the 43-year-old, who took over running the family's Cascina Oschina farm in 2012.
In the fields around the woods, Cerutti grows red and black rice along with historic varieties such as Carnaroli Classico and Arborio Classico, which are more resilient and produce smaller but higher-quality yields than modern ones.
She says her Carnaroli Classico was grown without using "a single gram of chemical fertilizer."
That is because she uses green manure and legume crops. Some 1,200 sheep are brought in to graze on the crops in between rice harvests, and they leave behind organic matter, which enriches the soil naturally.
Italy is the largest producer of rice in Europe but the sector is in crisis due to a flood of Asian imports, a rise in production costs, and droughts made more frequent and intense by man-made climate change.
Agricultural organisation Coldiretti has estimated some 25 percent of rice production may be lost this year due to heat.
After centuries thriving in the Po basin, producers are now trying dry-seeding, which works without continuous flooding.
But flooding paddies plays a vital role in "recharging the aquifer", which stores water like a sponge under ground, "holding thousands of times more than surface basins and retaining it for geological eras", agronomist Giovanni Molina told AFP.
"Dry-seeded rice farming, which is spreading (in Italy's rice belt) due to a misconception about water savings, is transforming one of Europe’s most fertile plains into a desert," he said.
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