"The Rice Stuff" Podcast Goes Feral

By Deborah Willenborg

USA Rice

National Rice Month on the award-winning The Rice Stuff podcast began with celebrations and charitable donations that showcase all the promise and community that is integral to the rice community, so it seemed fitting to end the month with a grave challenge facing growers: feral hogs.

Feral hogs are essentially an invasive species. Once a novelty or oddity, they have become a major problem for agriculture. The swine are prolific, as is the damage they can wreak on crops.

On Episode 54, Dr. Steve Linscombe was joined in conversation about feral hogs by William Futch from USDA’s Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service (APHIS); Dr. Glen Gentry, director of the LSU AgCenter’s Bob R. Jones Idlewild Research Station; and Arkansas rice farmer Jim Whitaker.

“Every year hogs do millions of dollars in damage to crops,” said Linscombe. “They are also sometimes quite aggressive and can present a danger to humans who aren’t careful. This is certainly not a glamorous topic, but it’s an important one, especially today with profit margins being so thin. Any loss to a farmer can be make or break.”

Linscombe’s guests talked about strategies for dealing with the unwanted visitors, from poison and traps to hunting and electrified wires.

New episodes of The Rice Stuff are published on the second and fourth Tuesday of every month and can be found on Apple Podcasts, Google Podcasts, Spotify, Stitcher, and online at www.thericestuffpodcast.com.