Louisiana rough rice stocks in all positions on August 1, 2023, totaled 2.14 million cwt, down 20 percent from August 1, 2022.
Read MoreBehind only California and Arkansas, Louisiana produces the third-most rice of any U.S. state, and the starchy grain is a major staple in much of the state's unique cuisine.
As production of rice has increased through the decades in Louisiana and beyond, so has the need for more water to grow and harvest it.
Read MoreUSA Rice has released the annual U.S. Rice Domestic Usage Report , tracking domestic shipments and consumption of U.S. milled rice from August 2021 through July 2022. This year’s report has added new consumer research data that gives a clearer picture of who is eating rice, where they are consuming it, and where they are buying it.
Read MoreRice harvest is wrapping up in southwest Louisiana and west of Houston in Texas. Ideal weather facilitated a rapid rice harvest in the region, with little or no rainfall interfering with operations since harvest began in mid-July. This is just the opposite of last year, when it seemed to rain every day as soon as combines hit the fields.
Read MoreThe annual National Rice Month (NRM) Scholarship video contest is here and it’s everything! Creative students are challenged to shine a light on our favorite home-grown grain, and in a short video – three minutes or less – educate, entertain, and tell us why rice is special to you, to your state, or to the world.
Read MoreThis month’s 2023/24 U.S. corn outlook is for reduced supplies, lower domestic use, smaller exports, and tighter ending stocks. Projected beginning stocks for 2023/24 this month have been raised 55 million bushels higher based on a lower use forecast for 2022/23, reflecting reductions in corn used for exports, glucose and dextrose, and starch.
Read MoreUSA Rice attended the Farm Bureau Southern Region Legislative Conference hosted by the Louisiana Farm Bureau here this week. The annual conference brings together 13 states and agricultural groups to discuss current issues facing the agriculture sector and reports on legislative activities from each state, and how they can continue to advocate and advance policies to benefit producers across all sectors of agriculture on the local and national level.
Read MoreRice harvest is just getting underway in Louisiana and Bobby Hanks CEO of Supreme Rice says it’s running ahead of the average pace. “We’ve had some extremely dry weather here in Louisiana, which is allowed for continuous harvesting,” he says. “Normally we would see several days of interruptions with rains and showers that slow or stop the harvest.”
Read MoreRice farmers in Louisiana are mining a tiny sliver of silver lining the coronavirus pandemic: U.S. demand for jasmine rice.
Paul Johnson of Welsh, La., is one of the farmers tapping into the existing U.S. market. In 2023, he planted each of his 1,800 rice acres to jasmine.
Read MoreFall armyworms, Spodoptera frugiperda, are chronic insect pests in the state, with more than 60 plants reported as hosts, including various pasture grasses (and lawns) and agronomic crops including corn, alfalfa, cotton, soybeans, grain sorghum, and rice. They migrate to Louisiana from neighboring regions like Florida, Texas, Caribbean islands, and Central-South America, with infestations most common from late July to early August.
Read MoreThe 86th International Rice Festival has selected Christian and Julie Richard as the 2023 Farmers of the Year.
The Richards will join the Presidential Party for the 2023 festivities. The annual event is the oldest and largest agricultural festival in Louisiana.
This year’s festival will be held Oct. 19 to 22 in downtown Crowley.
Read More"This is just another example of India playing games with global food security, citing concerns over domestic supplies despite tens of millions of metric tons in government stocks in addition to what's stored privately," said Bobby Hanks, a Louisiana rice miller and chair of the USA Rice International Trade Policy Committee.
Read MoreSouthern Louisiana is experiencing one of its hottest and driest summers in recent history which has affected one of Louisiana's biggest industries, rice farms.
Read More“Hey, did you hear about the rice shortage news? You need to go stock up right now!” was the panicked call 27-year-old Sowmya Akshara, a resident of Sacramento, California, received from a friend around 3 pm on Friday, July 21. Shortly after, she rushed to the local Indian grocery store only to be met with empty shelves. This was the plight of several others across the United States after the Indian government revised its export policy on Thursday to ban the export of certain varieties of rice.
Read MoreTerns lifted off from the rice field, a raccoon hunched across the road and the sun dropped another few inches while Paul Johnson thought about his greatest challenge as a farmer. Maybe he had to think about sorting through many to choose one.
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