The results of the LIFE project have been positive, the first indication of this being the approval of the LIFE ECO-RICE project (LIFE04 ENV/ES/000184).

The BIOCOMPOST gathering system has demonstrated the feasibility of the removal of the rice stalk from fields in regions which are characterised by swampy cultivations or cultivations whose process involves flooding. Farmers are already convinced of this and the prototypes are working very efficiently. The Valencia City Council has received requests from other municipalities of the Natural Park to be included in the gathering process. Unfortunately, the three machines used in the project are not sufficient to cover further areas of land. As a result, the city councils who had filed requests and faced by the pressure from the farmers, proposed to offer the same service to its inhabitants as Valencia had provided with BIOCOMPOST. Valencia City Council, on the other hand, has undertaken the responsibilty to continue the gathering of rice stalks in its municipality, beginning with the 2004 season (the first one following the conclusion of the project). The reduction in smoke has also been observed by the inhabitants.

The composting process of the rice stalk has proven effective both with and without sludge from purifying plants. The best indicator of this is the fact that the composting plant involved has built more silos under its own initiative, in order to treat this waste in higher quantities and more quickly, and has asked the City Council for the rice stalks from the next harvesting seasons.

The economic cost of the gathering process has proven to be the area to be solved in the future. It is not sustainable for a city council to pay for the costs incurred by the gathering process year after year. It would not be exportable to economically deprived areas or to small town councils. This reasoning has caused the City Council to present the ECO-RICE project. This project maintains the gathering method proposed in BIOCOMPOST, as well as the eliminating method of composting. But ECO-RICE goes beyond that and intends to achieve a competitive price for the rice stalks in order to pay for the cost of its removal from the fields. In order to do this, further applications of the rice stalks were analysed so as not to depend on a sole buyer. Not only will the option of composting plants be considered, but also other uses for the stalks (paper, bedding for livestock, construction...) and an innovative use for the rice stalks will be proposed: the production of blankets of rice stalks which are very useful both for saving water in cultivations (mulching) and retaining and revegetating taluses. Since the selection of ECO-RICE in the LIFE 2004 calling was made public, with Valencia City Council and the European Comission working together once again in the search for alternative solutions to the burning of the rice stalks, many people have shown interest in acquiring stalks from the project, an indication of the continuity of BIOCOMPOST.