Maria Paola Rovasenda Biandrate
A good and fair rice for everyone.
Maria Paola di Rovasenda has been the owner since 1995 of an organic farm of 80 hectares planted with rice in the heart of the Baraggia, between Biella, Novara and Vercelli. After her studies in the health sector and a few years of work in Genoa, she found herself facing problems that led her to change her lifedata-style. So she decided to ask her father, now in his eighties, to take over from him in the management of the Rovasenda farm.
Her interest in a healthy and connected life and a careful diet led Maia Paola to take an interest in organic farming. In this way, starting from 2008, you started the first experiments on the farm for the production of organic rice. Within a decade the whole company was converted to the production of organic rice and by applying practices already in use in the territory, with the collaboration of the new factor, willing to question the notions learned through university training and previous work experience, becomes a point of reference for this type of crop.
Today Maria Paola is among the tutelary deities of the movement for the production of true organic rice, marking a clear detachment from producers who do organic only in words, without ever closing the dialogue with those who think differently. On the contrary, an attitude of a constant search for a point of contact, of a cultural mediation with those who think differently, marks the entire duration of the interview.
Video table of contents
- Cascina Teglio in Rovasenda.
- Healthcare studies.
- Difficulty in continuing to work, severe weight loss and difficulties in healing.
- Macrobiotics, the decision to take over the ownership of the farm from my father, the improvements in my health.
- The importance of producing healthy foods.
- The closures to Bio of those who have worked with chemistry all their life.
- In 25 years, the perception of organic products in Rovasenda has changed.
- The Stocchi family led the way in organic farming: the green mulching technique.
- The beginning of organic farming and the overcoming of perplexities, year 2008.
- The gradual transition to organic farming from 2008 to 2013 hiring a young agronomist.
- The definitive transition to organic: 2013 - 2016.
- Difficulties caused by inexperience but covered by the "PSR".
- Participatory research: Riso bio System.
- Our techniques studied by universities: the comparison and study of biodiversity. A culture of nature.
- The union between organic farmers to improve themselves as a group.
- The birth of the Biodistrict and the business network.
- Interest in institutions.
- Comparative studies on organic rice cultivation.
- People's interest in clean rice: hearing the song of frogs again for a Novarese!
- Doing organic farming also means protecting and rebuilding nature, working together with other people, communicating with customers, sharing decisions.
- Conventional cultivation does not leave residues on the rice but we must consider the impact on the environment in its complexity.
- We have been conventional until yesterday. The conventional has brought well-being to generations of farmers but it is time to reflect and question ourselves.
- A progressive conversion proposal in compliance with the constraints that each company has.
- RisoBioSystem: a project that has created greater dialogue and strengthened organic farmers.
- Direct selling is essential to obtain a price that covers our costs.
- Each customer is precious because it allows us to do our job well.
- The sale is the consequence of an honest relationship with the customer.
- The customer is not a number is a person with whom one relates.
- My mother was a mess in the kitchen.
- My mother's non-cooking led me to become more interested in cooking.
- Mom's charcoal cooking.
- From boiled rice to classic rice seasoned with beans or other low glycemic index legumes. How the "laughter of health" changes.
Interview information
Country: IT
Region: Piemonte
City: Rovasenda
Urls: Riso Solidale Rovasenda
Maria Paola Rovasenda Biandrate
Date of birth: 03-01-1955
City: Genova
School: University
Profession: Farmer
Languages: Italiano
Document by: Luca Ghiardo
Video by: Luca Ghiardo
Created: 11-05-2021
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.
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