The steaks are thick at Mel's Steaks & Catering in Harrisburg, and I make sure to have rice on the side rather than a baked potato. After all, I'm having lunch with some of the leading rice producers in northeast Arkansas.
David Gairhan, Eric Vaught, Roger Pohlner and Dan Hosman have joined me to discuss farming in a state that grows half the nation's rice. It's fitting that the discussion is taking place in Poinsett County since this county now grows more rice than any other county in the South.
Rice production has long been associated with the Grand Prairie, but almost 60 percent of the state's rice is now grown north of Interstate 40. That's one reason the University of Arkansas System's Division of Agriculture created the Northeast Rice Research & Extension Center on 600 acres in Poinsett County. This is the only agricultural experiment station based on what are known as "white soils" in this part of Arkansas. The center will provide rice producers on these soils with research-based information.
Tim Burcham, who was hired away from Arkansas State University at Jonesboro to direct the new center, is having lunch with us on this hot Tuesday.
"It takes an army to farm," Burcham says. "What I call the ag army includes not just farmers but also people such as irrigation specialists and herbicide experts. Growing rice isn't for sissies. It's a labor-intensive crop."
New seed varieties come out every few years, and producers must constantly work to increase yields to offset higher input costs for fuel and other items needed to raise a crop. The UA Division of Agriculture was already conducting rice research at the Rice Research & Extension Center at Stuttgart and the Northeast Research & Extension Center at Keiser. But soil differences made another research facility necessary.
Soils on the Grand Prairie and soils closer to the Mississippi River near Keiser aren't the same as the soils here. Rice is now grown in more than 40 of Arkansas' 75 counties.
Even though the state's first successful rice crop was grown in 1904, cotton continued to dominate Arkansas' economy until after World War II. In his history of Arkansas agriculture, the late historian C. Fred Williams of the University of Arkansas at Little Rock noted that attitudes began changing when farmers from upland counties started moving into the Delta and trying different methods.
"The intrastate migration from western hill counties to eastern lowland counties interjected a work ethic that had been missing in the traditional plantation culture and its paternalistic social relationships," Williams wrote. "By settling on land that local farmers deemed undesirable or less desirable, newcomers contradicted the traditional land-holding pattern. Not knowing that the soil was untillable, the former hill farmers taught their neighbors a lesson about determination and will.
"Desha County, which had 26.9 percent of its acreage in cultivation in 1925, had 40.5 percent by 1940. Other Delta counties showed similar increases. By challenging conventional wisdom, many formerly destitute farmers gained economic success and convinced Delta cotton farmers that almost all land in the Mississippi Alluvial Plain could be profitable. For many farmers new to the Delta, a key was in growing rice instead of, or in addition to, cotton."
Marginal buckshot soil that was avoided by cotton farmers was suitable for rice. Production controls on cotton in the Agricultural Adjustment Act of 1933 led additional Arkansas landowners to turn to rice.
"World War II transformed Arkansas agriculture," Williams wrote. "The combination of increasing demand and rising prices for farm products, alternative job opportunities and the use of technology changed the nature of farming in a generation. In 1940, tenants or sharecroppers cultivated more than 60 percent of the land, and more than 90 percent of farmers used horses or mules as draft animals. By 1964, the statistical importance of tenant-sharecroppers, and the number of horses and mules, had been reduced to the point that federal officials no longer collected data on them.
"The significance of the changes lay in the speed in which they occurred. Cotton had been the state's bellwether crop, but by the end of the war, rice and soybeans appeared and quickly won a loyal following. After a few years, farmers were convinced that the relative ease of producing soybeans made it the crop for the future. Rice, too, because of its greater economic returns, found increasing favor in the Delta. Farmers were willing to make long-term commitments to these crops even though it meant acquiring new equipment."
Rice cultivation didn't immediately replace cotton. It often was planted on land that had recently been cleared for timber and was being used for grazing cattle.
"Levees and pumps, as well as machinery designed to remove tree stumps at or below ground level, were required to create and maintain rice fields," Steven Teske wrote for the Central Arkansas Library System's Encyclopedia of Arkansas. "Seasonal floods of the St. Francis and Cache rivers made some land unsuitable for other crops but ideal for rice. Many rice farmers were recent immigrants to Arkansas."
A 1930 survey revealed that 60 percent of those growing rice in Arkansas came from Illinois, Indiana, Iowa or Ohio. Rather than using sharecroppers and tenant farmers, they paid wages to laborers. The size of the state's rice harvest began growing steadily. By 1942, there were 268,000 acres of rice with a yield of 13.12 million bushels.
Senior Editor Rex Nelson's column appears regularly in the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette. He's also the author of the Southern Fried blog at rexnelsonsouthernfried.com.