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A dear friend's daughter got married last month in Arkansas. So that meant a road trip for Gary and me.
When we travel, we love to see what is going on in the agricultural realm. As we traveled through Ohio, we saw the progression of spring planting of corn and soybeans and compared it to what were seeing around northeastern Ohio.
Then the highways in Kentucky carried us through a lot of mostly forested areas until we reached the western end of the state. It was there where Kentucky, Illinois and Missouri come together that we began to see more of the agricultural fields that we're used to. Never visiting this area before, it was fun to see where the Ohio and Mississippi rivers meet.
Before we knew it, we were in Arkansas and taking in all the agricultural sites. We quickly started questioning what we were seeing. The prepared fields looked like they had soil mounded around the edges. It had been raining (which it did a lot on that trip and back here in Ohio as well) and in some areas the rain water was accumulating and trapped in the fields. I believe it was Gary who figured out that these were rice fields, but to be sure I searched online for an answer.
Sure enough, the eastern half of Arkansas is a big producer of long and medium grain rice. In fact, Arkansas is the number one rice producing state in the U.S., producing 40 to 50 percentof the total U.S. production. Each year, Arkansas farmers plant an average of 1.3 million acres of rice and harvest over 200 million bushels each year.
The Arkansas Farm Bureau website gives some details about how the long history of growing rice began: "In the 1800's, farmers in the prairie lands of Arkansas were in need of a dependable, profitable crop and rice became a contender almost by accident, when W.H. Fuller ventured south to Louisiana in August of 1896 on a hunting trip. It was there he first saw rice growing, which ultimately led to the development of a leading agricultural industry for the state. Fuller, along with his brother-in-law John Morris and John's wife Emma, are generally credited with founding the Arkansas rice industry. By 1910, rice production, research and milling were established in the state."
The agricultural industry is very big and diverse in Arkansas, adding about $16 billion to the state's economy annually. Besides rice, Arkansas produces many other commodities. They rank second in broiler production and third in catfish (food size). The amount of cotton and cottonseed produced gets Arkansas ranked No. 4 in the US. They rank fifth in the nation in turkey production and seventh in peanut production. The total number of beef cows get them ranked No. 10. They are ranked the 11th highest in chicken egg production as well as soybean production (3.5 million acres). The list keeps going -- corn, oats, pigs, cows and calves, dairy cattle/milk, and horticultural products, nursery/greenhouse products, fruits and vegetables.
Seeing and learning about agriculture in other states is just interesting to me, comparing and contrasting with what I have grown up around. I'm thankful for the farmers all across the country that utilize their climate and natural resources to grow the wide variety of agricultural products that are available to us. And I'm thankful that Arkansas is a great place to grow rice.
Smallsreed is a member of the Trumbull County Farm Bureau and grew up on a family dairy farm in northeast Ohio.