Catarroja hosts traditional rice harvesting festival

The Port of Catarroja hosted the Rice Harvesting Festival, a cultural and agricultural event dedicated to honoring traditional cultivation methods in the Albufera marshlands. The event featured demonstrations of manual rice reaping, a practice that was common until the 1950s before the introduction of machinery.

Participants used traditional tools such as the sickle (corbella), cart, and hoe to demonstrate the process of cutting and gathering straw for drying and threshing. The demonstration also included the 'cant de batre', traditional music that accompanied field labor for generations.

To honor those who preserved these agricultural customs, Vicente Rioja was awarded the 2026 Honor Reaper distinction. The initiative is a collaborative effort between the Arròs de València Designation of Origin and the Catarroja City Council to protect and promote local heritage.