The cultivation of rice started at the end of fourteenth century after the wave of the awful plague epidemic which decimated the population of the whole Continent. The first rice-fields appeared in Piedmont and Lombardy, fertile and well irrigated areas of Northern Italy. We know for sure that in 1475 Gian Galeazzo Sforza gave a sack of rice to the ducal family of Este, helping to diffuse this product in Italy; at the end of seventeenth century it arrived to America.

For a long time in Europe only a single variety of rice has been cultivated. Only starting from the middle of twentieth century a large number of species have been imported from the Far East and selections and vegetable genetic experimentations began. Another important step towards the modern rice-growing was the one made by Cavour: he started the construction of big irrigation systems in the area of Vercelli. The continuos watering of the rice-fields permitted to protect the little plants from the freezing and allowed the first intensive cultivations.

Nowadays Italy, the first Nation for quantity of cultivated rice, dedicates 230.000 acres to rice-fields. Most of the rice cultivations in Italy are concentrated in Pavia's area both for the tradition of cultivation technics and morphological characteristics of the terrain.