The best Italian rice is grown in Calabria

Sibari rice is a cereal grown in the plain of the same name in the north of Ionian Calabria. Given the organoleptic characteristics conferred by the microclimate and the cultivation area, it is considered among the best Italian rices: there are also those who have called it the best rice in Italy. Sibari rice is produced on an area of about 600 hectares in the plain of the same name: the Piana di Sibari. Cultivated since the mid-twentieth century, until 2006 the production was destined for producers in northern Italy. Subsequently, reversing the trend, Calabrian producers took care of the entire production phase: from sowing to sale. The main varieties of rice grown in the Plain of Sibari are: Arborio, Carnaroli, Ganges, Karnak, Nerone and Originario. 

Arborio is a long-grained, semi-round, slightly square-shaped, pearly variety with a low amylose content.

Carnaroli is a historic Italian variety, considered the best for risotto; Its large size and high percentage of amylose ensure low stickiness and excellent cooking resistance.

Ganges is an aromatic variety with a long grain, with a very tapered shape.

Karnak is a variety similar to Carnaroli, ideal for risotto. 

Nerone is a variety with a medium-aromatic, crystalline black grain. 

The Originario is a japonica variety, characterized by small size, rounded shape, poor resistance to cooking and a certain stickiness.

Rice is a fundamental element in the history of human nutrition. As early as 13000 B.C., wild rice was an important source of nutrition for the populations that lived in what we now call China, the Korean Peninsula, Thailand and Vietnam. The oldest artifacts found to date date the domestication of rice to 5000 BC, which took place in an area between present-day eastern China and northeastern India. Between the fourth and third millennium B.C., rice cultivation reached as far as the Indus Valley. The first encounter between rice and European populations took place in the fourth century BC, with the conquest of Asia by Alexander the Great's Macedonian army. It was the Macedonians Theophrastus and Aristobulus who first described the cultivation of rice. Aristobolus described that rice cultivation was practiced in Bactria, present-day Afghanistan, and in the lands of the lower reaches of the Tigris and Euphrates rivers. In the ninth century, the Arabs introduced the cultivation of rice in Calabria, together with that of white mulberry, cotton, citrus fruits, sugar cane and eggplant. At the end of the seventeenth century, rice cultivation was widespread in the Po plain, in Tuscany and in some areas of Calabria and Sicily.