Giuseppe Vacca: A Life Between… Claudio Costanzo
A Farmer at the Service of Water: Claudio Costanzo's Memory and Vision
Claudio Costanzo, born in 1957, has dedicated over 43 years to working the canals of the Eastern Sesia, starting as a young plumber's assistant at the Crocicchio. His career has developed entirely around water, witnessing the transformation of agricultural and hydraulic work from manual labor to technical modernization. Costanzo has lived through the evolution of the profession: from the days when only sickles and shovels were used, to the arrival of excavators, alarms, and sensors, without ever losing direct, daily contact with the land.
His story highlights the importance of on-the-job training, the transmission of skills between generations, and the awareness that water, in addition to being a vital resource for agriculture, is also an element of balance and safety for the environment. After retirement, he continues to work on the Eastern Sesia as a member of the board of directors, maintaining close ties with colleagues, the local area, and the farming community.
His testimony also offers a historical reflection on the origins of water rights, the presence of ancient noble privileges, and the construction of a system that enabled the development of rice in the Vercelli area. Costanzo finally highlights climate change, the impoverishment of wildlife, increasing pollution, and the need for informed and shared water management today more than ever.
Video table of contents
- Forty-three years in the West Sesia
- We worked everything by hand, including managing flood waves!
- The boatmen, the head boatman, the water carrier and the assistant water carrier: a hierarchical structure
- Water is part of life
- The water carrier is a strange profession, known to few
- The strong value of Ovest Sesia: defending the territory, keeping it safe
- Seeing the "old" people work was a privilege, today we lose a lot with technology
- 9,000 km of canals to manage manually, today it's more feasible!
- Retirement dinners and the "masochism" of being part of the Ovest Sesia board of directors
- Now I'm a farmer: I know you have to be patient!
- Water rights: the Valperga counts
- Water measurement hasn't changed in 150 years
- Our bathtub was Elvo. It was drinkable water. Pollution and purifiers
- In the 1970s, very few animals were seen, now many more and even those that were once non-sedentary have become so thanks to climate change.
- Some lived by fishing on the canals, some by hunting.
- Water rights
Interview information
Country: IT
Region: Piemonte
City: Carisio
Claudio Costanzo
Date of birth: 10-18-1957
City: Santhià
School: Professional qualification
Profession: Farmer
Languages: italiano
Document by: Luca Ghiardo
Video by: Luca Ghiardo, Davide Porporato
Created: 11-04-2025
Questo video fa parte del seguente archivio
Rice stories
Rice stories
Food is a fundamental resource for man and his health, both through the supply of nutrients and the ability to embody traits of human culture that play a leading role in our well-being.
Over time, each territory has built original ways in which to relate to the fruits of its land, enriching them with rituals, symbolic meanings and culinary customs. Much of these relationships have been lost following the years of the economic boom, with the exodus from the countryside to urban centers, with the advent of agriculture for mass production and ultimately with the globalization of markets and the consequent impoverishment of the heritage of biodiversity and ethnodiversity.
The purpose of this archive is to collect evidence relating to the main rice production area in Europe, that is the Po Valley, and to investigate, through the analysis of textual sources and testimonies collected in the field, both what survives of this heritage, and the ways in which which has evolved and reached us, paying particular attention to the explicit and implicit links that bind food and health.
