{"id":869,"date":"2012-04-11T21:13:17","date_gmt":"2012-04-12T01:13:17","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/capitalcitiesusa.org\/?p=869"},"modified":"2024-12-03T16:49:40","modified_gmt":"2024-12-03T21:49:40","slug":"the-serendipity-of-rice","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/capitalcitiesusa.org\/?p=869","title":{"rendered":"The Serendipity of Rice"},"content":{"rendered":"

Linda Burton posting from Sacramento, California<\/em> — \u201cYou can tell by the scars on my knuckles that I grew up on a rice farm,\u201d said Bill. \u201cMy father started farming rice in the 50\u2019s and continued more than forty years. I know rice.\u201d Indeed he does, and he likes to talk about rice, too. William Huffman is now Vice-president of Communications for the Farmer\u2019s Rice Cooperative in Sacramento, and can tell you what you want to know. \u201cArkansas plants more acres that California does,\u201d he continued, \u201cbut we have a higher yield, because we have the perfect Mediterranean climate here.\u201d<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

Bill directed me to the Natomas Basin, just north of town, to view a farm. I had in mind an image of terraced rows of rice on Asian mountainsides, but Bill dispelled that image fast. \u201cWe even use laser-beam equipment for precise flat farming now,\u201d he explained, \u201cbecause water is so important. And fortunately our clay soil holds on to every drop.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>I drove to the airfield on Riego Road, where crop planes wait; spring rains have made the planting season late this year. \"\"<\/a>Inside, Rebecca showed me many maps of fields, pointing to each check (or row) and irrigation ditch, the precious water carefully contained. \u201cWhen it\u2019s time to plant,\u201d she said, \u201ca farmer calls his order in, tells us what he wants and when; then we soak the seeds; 24 hours is best. \"\"<\/a>Seeds are hauled by truck to the hangar, loaded into the hopper, and released into the plane for planting. We used to have someone directing the pilots by standing at the end of each row with a white flag,\u201d she said, \u201cnow we use GPS. It\u2019s fast.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>Though everything is old-crop stubble now, I can visualize the summer fields of green. And of course I wondered how, and why, rice farming ever started here. The Farmer\u2019s Rice Cooperative website answered that. Although commercial production didn\u2019t begin until 1912, rice farming began in gold-rush days. The Chinese immigrated to California like millions of others \u2013 hoping to strike it rich. Most of the people who came brought pick and shovel, but not food; dramatic food shortages resulted. The Chinese were a huge part of the labor force, often doing the most dangerous and difficult work, and rice was a staple in their diet. Keeping them fed was important, but the price of rice kept going up. Out of desperation, farmers who came to seek gold soon saw that riches might be found in doing what they did back home\u2014growing crops. The farmers were right.<\/p>\n

Over 95 percent of the 2 million tons of rice grown annually in California now is planted and harvested within 100 miles of Sacramento. California grows the \u201csticky\u201d rice, short and medium-grain japonica<\/em>, favored by Asian, Middle Eastern, and Mediterranean markets. Although most of that rice is consumed domestically (for table rice, or for making sushi, beer, and pet food), it also is exported to Canada, Hong Kong, Jordan, Kuwait, Lebanon, Liberia, Singapore, Sweden, Taiwan, Turkey, and the United Kingdom.<\/p>\n

Farmer\u2019s Rice Cooperative http:\/\/www.farmersrice.com\/index.htm<\/a><\/p>\n

Farm Air Flying Service, 4425 W Riego Road, Sacramento, California 95837<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Linda Burton posting from Sacramento, California — \u201cYou can tell by the scars on my knuckles that I grew up on a rice farm,\u201d said Bill. \u201cMy father started farming rice in the 50\u2019s and continued more than forty years. I know rice.\u201d Indeed he does, and he likes to talk about rice, too. William […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[4586,194],"tags":[212,269,268,272,271,267,270],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/capitalcitiesusa.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/869"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/capitalcitiesusa.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/capitalcitiesusa.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/capitalcitiesusa.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/capitalcitiesusa.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=869"}],"version-history":[{"count":13,"href":"https:\/\/capitalcitiesusa.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/869\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":27221,"href":"https:\/\/capitalcitiesusa.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/869\/revisions\/27221"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/capitalcitiesusa.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=869"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/capitalcitiesusa.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=869"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/capitalcitiesusa.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=869"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}