Receiving Manager Dana Vidrine pours a farmerÕs rice sample into a shaker that filters out rice pieces from full long grain rice Wednesday, September 14, 2022, at Falcon Rice Mill in Crowley, La.
Robby Trahan, co-owner of Falcon Rice Mill, holds raw brown rice and white rice that has been milled Wednesday, September 14, 2022, in Crowley, La.
Robby Trahan, co-owner of Falcon Rice Mill, collects a handful of rice as it comes out of the mill Wednesday, September 14, 2022, in Crowley, La.
A forklift driver moves pallets of rice that are ready for distribution Wednesday, September 14, 2022, at Falcon Rice Mill in Crowley, La.
Robby Trahan, co-owner of Falcon Rice Mill, is pictured Wednesday, September 14, 2022, in Crowley, La.
Receiving Manager Dana Vidrine weighs a farmerÕs rice sample Wednesday, September 14, 2022, at Falcon Rice Mill in Crowley, La.
Receiving Manager Dana Vidrine pours a farmerÕs rice sample into a shaker that filters out rice pieces from full long grain rice Wednesday, September 14, 2022, at Falcon Rice Mill in Crowley, La.
Robby Trahan, co-owner of Falcon Rice Mill, holds raw brown rice and white rice that has been milled Wednesday, September 14, 2022, in Crowley, La.
Robby Trahan, co-owner of Falcon Rice Mill, collects a handful of rice as it comes out of the mill Wednesday, September 14, 2022, in Crowley, La.
A forklift driver moves pallets of rice that are ready for distribution Wednesday, September 14, 2022, at Falcon Rice Mill in Crowley, La.
Robby Trahan, co-owner of Falcon Rice Mill, is pictured Wednesday, September 14, 2022, in Crowley, La.
Receiving Manager Dana Vidrine weighs a farmerÕs rice sample Wednesday, September 14, 2022, at Falcon Rice Mill in Crowley, La.
This year’s rice harvest in southwest Louisiana could be the costliest and possibly one of the more frustrating ones for many farmers in what could have been a banner year in the industry.
Skyrocketing costs of fuel and fertilizer at the start of the year made industry leaders tap the brakes on the optimism in 2022, but favorable weather early on without any hurricanes steered the outlook back to positive. But the excessive amount of rain in August during harvest time could be the reason the yield will end up slightly lower than a year ago.
Acreage was slightly up in the five parishes that are home to nearly 75% of Louisiana’s rice farms — hot spots Acadia and Jeff Davis along with Vermilion, Evangeline and St. Landry — but so was angst as farmers had no choice but to swallow the higher costs.
“It’s been a very frustrating year,” said Kane Webb, director of field services for USA Rice. “We want to keep it positive, but make no mistake, it’s been a hard year, especially in the rice industry.”
Last month the USDA’s Louisiana Field Office forecasted the year’s rice production at 27.9 million hundredweight, or 2.79 billion pounds of rice. That was down 5% from its Aug. 1 forecast and 2% down from last year’s 28.4 million hundredweight. It also forecasted 6,700 pounds of rice per acre, which would be down from 170 pounds last year.
Five southwestern Louisiana parishes make up the bulk of rice farms in Louisiana with St. Landry Parish surpassing Morehouse for the No. 5 spot. Here is a breakdown:
According to data compiled by LSU Ag Center, acreage for the year topped 415,000, up about 4,000 acres from a year ago, while others states reported a drop in acreage. Acadia Parish led the state with 84,518 acres and was just ahead of the 82,616 farmed in Jeff Davis Parish.
But the costs and heavy rains during harvest combined for the downgraded forecast. Fertilizer costs, LSU Ag officials reported in the spring, more than tripled from two years ago, and some herbicides had doubled in cost and became hard to find. Diesel prices in Louisiana averaged $5.37 in June.
“Our costs are the main discouragement this year,” longtime Acadia Parish farmer Jackie Loewer said. “Everything tripled. Fertilizer tripled. Chemicals doubled. And then all the services had to go up because of inflation. And the price (of rice) didn’t rise in step with it.
“It’s a little bit better than last year but nowhere near what the input cost was. Our margins just shrank. If we can break even this year, we’ll consider it a success, I think.”
The heavier-than-usual rains that came in August while most farmers were harvesting made for trying times. The state had over 10 inches during the month, the third-highest August on record, while the southern United States had its 10th-wettest August on record, according to NOAA.
Up until then, said Robby Trahan, co-owner of Falcon Rice Mill in Crowley, there were high hopes for a productive yield. But the daily showers made cutting difficult.
“It’s pretty interesting times right now,” he said. “That (rain) basically made our harvest two to three weeks behind. We went from not having a lot of rain, which is good when it’s not growing, (then to) right when it was time to start cutting it started raining every day. I think the rain is going to make it an average yield in Louisiana. Before it started raining, the crop was looking really good.”
The daily afternoon showers made it difficult to get out in the field. Speaking during an Acadia Parish Chamber of Commerce event last month, Webb said farmers likened the rainy month to a roller coaster. While many farmers can cut up to 100 acres a day, he said one farmer north of Crowley cut only 89 acres over a five-day span.
In the same field, he said, yields changed 10-15 barrels in spots.
The wet conditions, Loewer noted, made it hard to remove the grain from the straw, the vegetative part of the plant that is cut during harvest and often burned or left on the field.
“So we have to wait during harvest until 10 or 11 o’clock until all the dew is gone before we can go ahead and harvest it,” he said. “If we get to it too early, it’ll all go out with the straw. That’s why we have to wait. A lot of people fought for 10 days trying to get things cut and the couldn’t get in the field. If it rains every day, you can’t mow your grass and we can’t cut our rice.”
The price of rice, meanwhile, remained steady while other commodities were more volatile, Webb noted, with rice ranging from $14 to $17.50 per hundredweight. The war in Ukraine forced the price of wheat per bushel to nearly double, which affected other commodity prices, Trahan said.
Acreage in other areas of the U.S. were down, including in California and Arkansas, because of drought conditions. The drop in California allowed Louisiana to surpass it as the No. 2 grower of rice in acreage behind Arkansas, Webb noted.
Now that the rain has stopped and fields are drying out, many are going into the second crop phase, said Ronnie Levy, rice specialist with LSU Ag. But it’s also giving farmers a chance to prep fields for next year and to plan crawfish fields as many farmers rotate each year of having either more acreage of rice or of crawfish.
The lack of rainfall in Louisiana in September has affected other areas of the agriculture industry, including low river levels in the Mississippi River that is interfering with getting grain down river.
“The season kind of took a downfall, but now we are getting a lot of ground done for next year,” Levy said. “This dry weather we’ve been facing the last couple of weeks, we’re anticipating a good production year next year. Second crop looks fair at best, and that may impact crawfish production as well because of the amount of forage that’s going to be available for them to grow in the fields. It's going to be interesting to see what happens."
Email Adam Daigle at adaigle@theadvocate.com.
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