The European China is located between Lombardy and Piedmont and is a perfect network of ditches, streams and small canals ten thousand kilometres long. A unique hydraulic system in continental Europe watering 235 thousand hectares of fields which produce most of European rice. During spring the “rice triangle” between Vercelli, Novara and Pavia seen from above looks like a checked sea where everything gets reflected: poplars, bell towers, tractors and old farmhouses similar to those seen in the 1949 movie “Riso amaro”, starring Silvana Mangano and Vittorio Gassman. Rice arrived in Italy around the 11th Century and was grown in the Lombard wetlands by Cistercian monks. Today 4000 farms, approximately fifty midsize industries and four leading companies preserve the secrets of a trade handed down for centuries from father to son.
