The Arkansas rice industry donated 153,500 pounds of rice to the Arkansas Foodbank in honor of National Rice Month yesterday. The donation from seven mills will provide over 1.5 million servings of rice to help feed families, children and seniors across the state. We caught up with Kelly Robbins, new executive director of the Arkansas Rice Federation to hear all about it.
September is Rice Month and the harvest is well underway in Arkansas, the nation’s leading rice producing state. C.J. Parker began harvesting his 4,000 acres this week on his farm near Carlisle. Though he’s had some weather-related delays he still expects to have a good yield.
Though heavy rains this past spring forced Prairie County farmer Mason Sickel to push back his rice planting several weeks, he says that his crop is turning out better than expected this harvest season.
Harvest season is in full swing, so we visited Tollville rice farmer Mason Sickel to capture some of the hard work that's happening in the fields right now.
In honor of National Rice Month and Rice Month in Arkansas, the Arkansas rice industry makes a donation to the Arkansas Foodbank each year. We attended this year's donation ceremony at the Food Bank headquarters in Little Rock and spoke with Rhonda Sanders, CEO of the Food Bank and Dan Hosman, Craighead County rice farmer and chair of the Arkansas Rice Council.
Ground hasn’t been broken yet for the planned Northeast Rice Research and Extension Center, but Timothy Burcham, the center director, took us on a tour of the site near Jonesboro with ArFB state board member Joe Christian, who serves as secretary/treasurer of the Arkansas Rice Research and Promotion Board.
Roger Pohlner of Fisher is the new chairman of the Arkansas Rice Research and Promotion Board. We visited with him at the recent Rice Field Day in Stuttgart and learned about some of ways the board hopes to improve profitability for the state’s rice farmers this year.
Some 1.3 million acres of rice are grown annually in Arkansas, but only a few hundred acres are devoted to Yamada Nishiki; a short grain variety used to produce premium sake. Chris and Judy Isbell of Isbell Farms in England, AR, grow the grain. Watch them describe how sake is made.
"Rice Day" was celebrated in Arkansas on Thursday, September 13. Gov. Asa Hutchinson signed the Rice Month proclamation at the state Capitol and rice industry representatives gathered at the Arkansas Foodbank to announce the industry's annual rice donation to feed the hungry.
Ralston Family Farms in Atkins is unique. Tim Ralston and his family recently added a rice mill to their operation, giving them control of almost all aspects of the farm-to-table cycle – growing the rice and harvesting it, and then packaging and marketing it to consumers.
