«Sorry, I just wanted to explain to you for a moment what this is about…». TO Vittoria Francesca Brambilla, a life in the laboratory, it is strange to hear people talk about “Victory rice”. But it is a fact that since everyone calls the first genetically modified but non-GMO vegetable this way, this researcher fromUniversity of Milan it is a symbol. Because she is the first to have brought one onto the field TEA cultivars (assisted evolution technologies). The little moment worth a lifetime. She has been working there for ten years, with her husband – the professor Fabio Fornara – and a lot has changed.
This year, Sen Luca De Carlo has made it possible to experiment with varieties modified to resist diseases without resorting to transgenic procedures but using the techniques Crispr-Cas9. The opportunity is part of an exemption that expires at the end of the year and which passed only thanks to an amendment to the drought decree: «The political message is easier if it is motivated by a slogan, but it is more difficult if it is based on science. But we have to work like this if we want to dictate a strategic line” he explains. Presenting the first Tea rice (it will be called Ris8imo), Brambilla admits the satisfaction of the scientific world – «the first time a Tea leaves the laboratory» – and the senator for life Elena Cattaneo confirms the historical value of this project.
At his side, the agriculture councilor of the Lombardy region, Alessandro Beduschi: it opened the doors to the testing of the first rice resistant to brusone fungus, earning the title of “first Tea Region”. “It’s one of the best days since I’ve been a councillor,” he comments. It’s hard to blame him. The exponent of the right – the same party as De Carlo – realizes the dream of the entire world of scientific research after decades of the centre-left not being able to reconcile science and the environment, maintaining its veto on any genetic innovation. «This day is worth the entire mandate – he states -. Of course, we do it with a 28 square meter plot of video-monitored field, as if it were a police operation. Today we are certifying a new pact between politics and science which is for sustainability and not against the environment and can do more on this level.”
In the audience, farmers, irrigation consortia, industry and many universities, gathered by the foundation Bussolera Brancathe same one that financed effective research against the tiger mosquito a few years ago and today this experiment is supported.
In the background, stories of ordinary bureaucracy, like the one told by Roberto Defez (Cnr): «Brambilla’s first testing request was rejected because she had made a mistake in writing the reason for the 1500 euro payment with which she had presented it. History cannot be stopped for a money order.”
The project is highly innovative but does not only have scientific value. Rice grower Federico Radice Fossati clarifies this: «For the first time in Italy we are experiencing a change in a cultivation system». His rice fields are the same ones that Ludovico il Moro gave to Cecilia Gallerani, the Lady of the Ermine; they represent the natural habitat of Carnaroli, the most prized rice but also the one most easily attacked by brusone. Like Arborio, in whose boxes Ris8imo will be inserted, if the project is successful and becomes the first Tea rice consumed in our country.
