Granai della Memoria

Matteo Musso is part of that generation of farmers who have had and made the most of the opportunity to choose agriculture after a course of university studies. Matteo, a law graduate, returned to the family business after three years of apprenticeship, bringing not only new strengths but above all an alternative point of view.

With the recognition of the D.O.P. for the rice of Baraggia Matteo pushes to transform the family business from the traditional plant, with the production and sale of paddy, to a company that markets and sells its transformed product directly. In the lands of Baraggia, rice has been cultivated at least since the mid-1600s, as attested by documentary sources. A territory with a very particular conformation and soils: the Baraggia does not have alluvial soils like the Vercelli plain but morainic soils, fed by oxygenated but also very cold waters and characterized by a climate with significant temperature changes, conditioned by the proximity of the mountains.

The interview also addresses the issue of environmental sustainability, highlighting the strengths and weaknesses, limits and advantages of conventional agriculture. Matteo describes an interesting parallelism between the Baraggia and the Langhe: two territories that experienced extreme poverty in the first decades of the twentieth century and that found the strength to emancipate themselves and find a new identity but in the sign of traditional values.