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Risotto rice under threat from flamingoes in north-eastern Italy (www.theguardian.com)

submitted 2 days ago by [email protected] to c/[email protected]

8 comments fedilink hide all child comments

Farmers are seeking ways to fend off birds who are stirring up soil in flooded paddy fields in Ferrara province

An unusual bird is ravaging crops and infuriating farmers in north-eastern Italy: the flamingo.

Flamingos are relatively recent arrivals in the area, and have settled into the flooded fields that produce rice for risotto in Ferrara province, between Venice and Ravenna.

The birds aren’t targeting the rice seedlings but use their webbed feet to stir up the soil and snatch molluscs, algae or insects from the shallow water. The rice is collateral damage.

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[–] [email protected] 6 points 2 days ago (5 children)

Edit: See responses for why this probably wouldn't work. Nonetheless, if I was a grower I might look into it anyway just to see what happens. How much could a dry corner of a field affect margins anyway...

Fun fact: Rice can be grown in the dry. The reason it's grown in the wet is that, unlike other grasses, it tolerates being grown in the wet, and so the water protects the rice from unspecified environmental factors.

My point here being the question as to whether the factors that destroy rice in the dry are worse than these flamingos. And if not, there's a solution presenting itself here.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 2 days ago (1 children)

I don't think it's unspecified, it's to keep weeds away. Using weed killing chemicals to kill off any plants in your field apart from the specially-weed-killer-resistant crops is super common in agriculture, and is terrible for the environment.

You seem to be against the idea of growing rice in flooded fields, can I ask why? It's not like this is in some places like California that's in constant drought.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 2 days ago* (last edited 2 days ago)

Not OP but in addition to the water consumption you already mentioned, flooded rice fields also produce a lot of methane due to the oxygen-free conditions at the bottom and the abundance of organic material.

This could be mitigated if fields would be drained periodically.

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