Calasparra is celebrating a bumper rice yield this year of three million kilos partly thanks to a successful campaign to combat plagues of insects.
Last Friday was The International Day of Rice and the Head of the Ministry of Water, Agriculture, Livestock, Fish and the Environment, marked the occasion by visiting the local Rice Cooperative (see photo).
There are 131 hectares of Bomba rice and 297 of Balillax Sollana in conventional cultivation and 45 of the latter variety in ecological cultivation in Calasparra.
The Director General of the Food Industry and Agrarian Cooperative, Jose Gomez, explained to the Minister that a technological fight, through sexual confusion methods, had been successful in beating plagues, which have affected the crops in recent years, particularly the Bomba variety.
Calasparra Rice is the first rice in Europe to have a Denomination of Origin, conceded in 1986, although rice has been cultivated locally since the 17th century.
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