Veneto Rice Route: Promoting Local Culture, Gastronomy, and Tourism
Rice fields find their way. The local typical product aims to create a gastronomic-cultural itinerary to attract tourists and keep them in the production and tasting area of Vialone Nano Veronese.
To put the local typical product on the right track, the «Rice Road Promotion Committee» was established. It was formed during a meeting organized by the Unione Provinciale Agricoltori (Provincial Farmers Union), which was attended by representatives from the Province, the Chamber of Commerce, the municipalities in the production area, Coldiretti, and local producers.
«I believe that the municipal administrations are interested in territorial marketing, in having the greatest number of people pass through and stop within the area», preempted Angiolino Roncarà, president of the rice growers section of the Unione Agricoltori. «We are trying to give an ‘additional push to the rice product’ in terms of its attractiveness within the territory».
Cultural and regulatory enhancement
«The initiative not only promotes the product, but also encompasses a set of cultural, historical, and architectural added values», said Francesco Minghetti, head of the economic office of Confagricoltura Veneto. He explained the regulations provided by regional law number 17 of September 7, 2000, concerning the establishment of wine roads and other typical products of Veneto.
Meanwhile, Fabio Poggi, president of the Garda Bardolino Wine Road Committee and of Garda olive oil, shared his experience at the meeting.
«Wine», he said, «is sold not only as a product itself, but also with everything beautiful around the lake». The same approach will need to be taken along the rice route, to attract passing tourists; in fact, even though the Rice Fair brings two hundred thousand risotto enthusiasts from the island to the town, and all events in the area where different risottos are tasted attract numerous visitors, it is also true that they are gastronauts» (as Minghetti described them), who eat and then leave.
Tourist objectives and itinerary
The first steps along the rice route should be taken by restaurants and hospitality services, which must strive to match the quality of the typical product, which bears the European Protected Geographical Indication (IGP) quality mark, and to retain some of the eight million tourists who each year stop by the lake.
The map of the route is still blank. Its potential itinerary, as hypothesized, could go from Gazzo Veronese to Nogarole Nocca, passing through Sorgà, Erbè, Isola della Scala, Vigasio, Povegliano, along a marked route offering tourists attractions not only gastronomic but also cultural, enhancing not only rice but also the historical-architectural riches of the area.
The Promotion Committee includes more than thirty percent of the companies producing Vialone Nano IGP rice. It includes Ernesto Artegiani, president of the Consorzio per la tutela del vialone nano veronese (Consortium for the protection of Vialone Nano Veronese), the mayors of Isola della Scala and Erbè, a representative of the Chamber of Commerce, one from the Associazione Ristoratori Isolana (Island Restaurateurs Association), and one from the Associazione “Luoghi di confine” (Borderlands Association).
They will need to develop a set of regulations to propose to the Region, outlining the route and the objectives of the initiative.
