PRESENTATION
Rice has been grown in Italy since 1500. Thanks to reclamation and the land improvement in the Po plain, rice culture found its ideal grow conditions there and indeed, since XIX century it is concentrated in the irrigated area delimitated by the rivers Po, Dora Baltea, Sesia and Ticino.
In the course of five centuries many problems concerning vegetable genetics, agronomics, labour management, use and full exploitation of the machines, conservation and trasformation of the product, have been solved by the Italian rice farmers.
The acquired patrimony of knowledge makes it possible to act in the most varied situations, contributing positively to the developement of the developping Countries.
These are the aims of the centro Export Rice Machinery of Vercelli.

What we do
At present in Italy, it takes an average of 55 working hours per year to cultivate an hectare of land. This valuable goal has been achieved because of mechanization has been improved so much, thanks to special applications and modifications, that today it is able to cope with the hardest land, wherever in the world there is the interest in fostering an highly yielding rice cultivation.
The list of technical means to obtain further improvements in an intensive exploitation of the land, is very long: slide or toothed wheel tractors, graders, rigid frame harrows, land levelling machines, sowing machines and dung spread, porter bar sprayer, combine harvesters with special half-track, self-propelled ditch-diggers to cut furrows, build banks, clean ditches and banks. These machines are the most striking evidence of a process started in the second half of XIX century.
Little before this date, in the rice-growing district of Vercelli, that covers 100.000 hectares, the supply and distribution of water to flood the fields, was becoming a worrying problem. With the aim of finding and assuring the most convenient solutions to this problem, in 1853 was founded the Associazione d’irrigazione Ovest Sesia that in over a century has acquired an extraordinary know-how in hydraulic technique. Particulary, the experience made in the management of water resources and in the techniques that discreased considerably the waste index, has been already widely employed in Countries where the control of the water resources is necessary, either because very scarse or redundant.
The numerous programs for the water-reordering, followed one upon the other also in this century, were carried out simultaneously with programs for the genetic improvement of the most grown rice sorts.
The continous improvements in farming techniques has led to the realisation of production levels as high as 75/80 quintals per hectare, and the agrarian reforms based on land disposition and the reorganisation of farming units, has brought about, especially in the last 30 years, an evident social evolution.
The average farm’s surface, that in the period 1951-55 was just of 6.75 hectares rose in the early 80’s, thus streanthening the farming and offering greater economic unit perspectives.
Equally important success has been achieved in the field of exsiccation with more and more sophisticated plants, that can work with the chaff combustion, which has a very high calorific power and very low cost. Also the storing systems have reached an high standard.
During the last years, the land levelling technique, very important for the correct use of the machines and the rationalisation of the productive cycle, has been revolutionized with the introduction of laser.
This and the experience matured in planning and equipping plants for rice processing, are facts deserving special attention.
Especially in this sector and also in all the others concerning manufacturing and setting-up plants for rice-processing, the contribution of the specialized industrial firms of Vercelli, is irreplaceble. There devices and fittings to operate in the hardest work conditions, have been held, since years, in great international consideration.

What we can do
Up to the 60’s the only solution for weed elimination, was the employement of rice-weeders. Every year, in May, thousands of them worked in the rice fields and a continous improvement of the management was necessary to coordinate such a big labour.
The generalized use of weed-killers has sensibly reduced the number of people employed in rice-weeding, although they have not completely disappeared and are still employed for certain tasks. The use of managing the rice farms, organizing and directing hands in high number, is still present. This combined with the knowledge in the employement of weed-killers, introduced later, creates a considerable heritage of experience and know how, and makes it possible for experts in the field and farmers, to cope with the various problems in management encountered by the farms growing rice on a large scale, in developping Countries.
This is one of the several concrete aspect that make up the know how that can be employed for international developping programs of cooperation and collaboration.

Other aspects not less important, are reclamation and the recovery and cultivation of fringe areas or lands not yet exploited because of the not ideal conditions of the ground.
Interventions, through substantial investiments made in the course of the 20 years, have led to an increase in the amount of land where rice is cultivated, as well as giving high yields.
In this framework that aims at making the Italian rice-growing one of the highest specialized agricultural branches in Europe, the most successful goals have been obtained thanks to the perfect combination of the forces involved; such as: farmers, researchers, experimentators, that have enjoyed since a long time, a worldwide fame; makers and adaptors of machines; hydraulic and chemical ingeneers; designers of "personalized" rice-mills and other plants adapted to particular needs.

The farms and the industries associated are capable of taking part in cooperation programs for the development of the rice-growing in the emerging Countries, furnishing full operative plants, which take into full consideration the environmental and social conditions, and also givig technical-economical guarantees.
An example: Export Rice Machinery can reclaim a land, undertaking the task, by direct concession or in partnership, of creating one or more rice farms, of managing them, giving the vocational training and also providing the mechanization processes with and use of the most suitable machines.
Export Rice Machinery is also prepared for the preparatory evaluation and planning of the intervention, in sight of more general advices concerning agricultural matters or industrial applications; for the realisation of plans worked out by the National or the District Administrations; for the supply of highly specialized services in management of homogeneous lands such as: respect of the environment, supply and control of the water resources, organisation of the harvesting and the sale of the product at the most advantageous conditions.
On the base of the substantial know-how acquired, both the Rosso International and Export Rice Machinery believe firmly in the international cooperation for the transfer of the technical means to the developping Countries, in order to promote their effective development.