Italian Rice 2026
A dry canal, and a field that should be flooded. In the rice plains, water is not a resource among others, it is the condition for everything. When it retreats, the whole system holds its breath.
A dry canal, and a field that should be flooded. In the rice plains, water is not a resource among others, it is the condition for everything. When it retreats, the whole system holds its breath.
The 2026 season arrived with less water than the fields needed. In a landscape built to be flooded, drought is not a slow erosion but a sudden absence, and the rice paddies, engineered over centuries to hold water, become the first place where the shortage becomes visible.
Not far from the failing fields, the experimental plots of the Ente Nazionale Risi tell the other half of the story. Here new varieties are tested against less water, dry sowing is measured against tradition, and the question is no longer only how to grow rice, but how to grow it in a climate that no longer guarantees the flood. The drought is the problem. These fields are where the answer is being looked for.
Selected images available for editorial use on Getty Images