The Rapio farm was founded in 1892 by the maternal grandfather of the present owner, Michele Rapio.
Rice is cultivated at this farm as a vocation, thereby handing down ancient, agricultural methods from generation to generation.
Differing from rice sold by major distributors, rice from the Rapio farm isn’t mixed with rice from other locations, in fact, all their rice is harvested in the same fields in Vespolate.
The following types of rice are cultivated at this farm:
- Vialone Nano – a semifine rice
- Carnaroli – a fine rice
- Roma – a fine rice
- Baldo – a fine rice
The cultivation of the rice is organic and only natural methods are used in order to avoid stressing the soil. These types of methods can be partly summarized as follows:
- only natural fertilizers are employed.
- making the rice plants more resistant against diseases using products which harm wildlife as little as possible.
- using green manure in order to make the soil more fertile. That is, planting legumes on any field not occupied by rice. When the legumes are mature, the field is is plowed, leaving the uprooted legumes to decompose below ground, enriching the soil mainly with nitrogen.
- using as little water as possible such that minerals present in the soil aren’t washed away.
- using calcium cyanamide which works simultaneously both as a fertilizer and as a fungicide.
The Rapio farm oversees almost all phases of cultivation of rice, meaning that they are doing the following themselves:
- preparation of the terrain
- fertilizing
- seeding
- harvesting
- storage
only polishing is left to other enterprises.
Rice cultivation follows the seasons as shown below:
- February: initial fertilization
- March: preparation of the terrain
- April: the rice field are completely submerged in water and ready to be seeded
- May: the seedlings appear
- June: the true growth of the rice plants
- July: the rise is flowering
- August: the grains are maturing
- September: harvesting
In addition to selling rice, other products derived from rice are sold in the same shop, among others:
- biscuits
- breadsticks
- pasta
- flour
- rice beer
- rice spirit
- rice oil
The rice is sold mainly in Italy, Switzerland and the United States.
