Rosalia Vacca and the Dream of… Franco Guglielmetti
A life on the Cavour Canal, half a century of water and history
Franco Guglielmetti, born in 1956, recounts his 50 years of service along the Cavour Canal, an experience that began at a young age after winning a competition to become a plumber's assistant. Raised near the water, he dedicated his entire working life to managing the irrigation network, first in operational roles and then with increasingly greater responsibilities.
His story spans the history of technical and agricultural changes: from manual maintenance in the 1970s to the introduction of machinery, automation, and electronics, from the evolution of crops to modern water management. Franco has experienced dramatic moments, such as floods, fatal accidents, and droughts, as well as moments of profound beauty, such as the recurrence of spring blossoms along the banks.
He has witnessed the transformation of the land, the loss of biodiversity, and the invasion of waste in the canals, denouncing the lack of respect for such a precious environment. At the same time, he has maintained a strong bond with the farming community, founded on trust, knowledge of the land, and a spirit of service.
His story is a testimony of historical, technical, and human memory, deeply intertwined with water and landscape.
Video table of contents
- Fifty Years on the Canals
- Manual labor: the busload of pensioners with saws and then progress
- End of June, beginning of July, the most difficult period of the year if it doesn't rain
- The world of the canal, a path of life and death
- Manual and motorized maneuvers
- Our work is intermittent: my phone is always on
- Relationships with colleagues, with other consortia, with farmers
- The water of the Cavour
- Nature changing on the canal
- The floods
- The end-of-season lunch
- How we communicated once upon a time
- I started the reconnaissance on foot, continued by bike, then by scooter and by car and finished by helicopter.
- Water rights: the Solaroli and Albereto outlets
- Level measurement: hydrometers, probes, models
- The abandonment of garbage along the canals
- Irrigated and winter
- The highest canal in the surrounding countryside: the embankment
- The navilante and the pradaré
- Beat the sickle
- Control of the territory through the presence
- Suicides in the Canal
- Black smoke over the canal: an accident
Interview information
Country: IT
Region: Piemonte
City: Formigliana
Franco Guglielmetti
Date of birth: 07-15-1956
City: Casanova Elvo
School: Professional qualification
Profession: Other
Languages: italiano
Document by: Luca Ghiardo
Video by: Luca Ghiardo, Davide Porporato
Created: 04-04-2025
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.
