Granai della Memoria

That of Eusebio Francese is a choral tale that spans almost a century of history. Born in 1925 in France and moved with his family, at the age of just four, to the rice-growing heart of the Po Valley, he talks about his relationship with agriculture marked by experimentation and an uncommon ingenuity. He begins by buying his first refrigerator, aimed at increasing the production of butter, borrowing money, a heresy in a farming world that considered debt ethically unacceptable.

Forerunner of the green revolution characterized by the use of pesticides and chemical fertilizers and aimed at developing an intensive agricultural model, he is the first to abandon these methods. He returns to agriculture free from harmful chemicals and to less productive rice varieties that are better from an organoleptic and nutritional point of view. He designs and builds his own rice dryer and stone mill for maize based on original ideas.

The most intense story is dedicated to one variety of rice above all, Maratelli rice, a fantastic cereal from every point of view, abandoned by the market for more productive varieties. Eusebio, after having obtained permission from the Maratelli family to recover the brand, devoted himself body and soul to giving life back to this variety that had disappeared from the market. As a true lover of ancient varieties, he looks beyond the yield per hectare, focusing on the organoleptic characteristics of each variety of rice.