Rice Continued from Page 7
“We want to hear from organic growers about their needs in terms of research and extension, what kind of information is needed.” UC Organic Agriculture Institute Director Houston Wilson, an entomolo- gist at UC Riverside, noted the rising im- portance of organic crops in California, which he said account for 8% to 10% of the state’s total crop acreage. “There’s a growing importance of or- ganic agriculture,” Wilson said. “The mar- kets have been expanding continuously, and we’re seeing an increased demand for reduced environmental impacts of crop production across the board.” Wilson added, “A key piece of further optimizing these organic practices and production systems is in the develop- ment of some type of institutional sup- port to drive this forward.” In 2019, UCCE hired California’s first organic crops specialist, Joji Muramoto. Wilson said universities from New York to Washington state are adding “targeted positions to focus on organic production.” Farmers who attended the meeting shared their experiences, and it became evident that the methods used to grow rice organically are hardly uniform. Sills’ daughter, third-generation rice grower Jessica Sills, said, “We’re all doing things differently. That’s why it’s nice to have meetings with others. We all learn from each other.” Wilson noted there has been a lack of shared technical information for organic farming, including for rice. “As we’ve seen growing market de- mand for organic production, it’s hit a threshold where we really need to ramp up support for these systems,” he said. “Organic research and pro- duction systems are very unique com- pared to conventional and require a different approach.”
Sacramento County rice farmer Ed Sills, left, with daughter Jessica Sills and the family’s farm manager Fernando Cordova, grows organic rice. They run Pleasant Grove Farms, which converted to organic production in the 1980s and supplies organic rice to Lundberg Family Farms and Farmers’ Rice Cooperative.
Ed Sills said he is pleased that “the re- search establishment has become much more interested in organic in the last five or 10 years.” He said that is “because or- ganic has become a bigger market and due to the environmental considerations that everybody is talking about sustainability.” The Sills’ family farm was established in 1946 in Arbuckle as a conventional rice farm before converting to organic years later. The farm has since relocated from Colusa County to Sutter County. In addition to rice, the 3,500-acre farm produces and processes organic corn, popcorn, beans, wheat, sunflower, saf- flower and sorghum. The Sills grow organic rice on about 1,300 acres for Richvale-based Lundberg Family Farms and Farmers’ Rice Cooperative,
headquartered in Sacramento. They typically laser-level fields with a slight slope that enables the irrigation water to drain properly. The family’s farm manager Fernando Cordova said fields are flooded, and after seeds are planted by airplane, the germinated rice grows and gets a head start before weed seeds emerge. At planting time, the rice seed is soaked for 24 to 48 hours to begin germination. The added water makes the seed heavier, so it sinks into the ground after it is flown over flooded fields. Pleasant Grove Farms soaks rice seed for Lundberg rice growers in Sutter, Yuba, Colusa and Yolo counties prior to aerial planting. “Lundberg (Family Farms) gives us an
order and we’ll soak it,” Jessica Sills said. “We broke a record this year, soaking over 2 million pounds of seed. The rice pro- duced from that feeds 2.5 million people.” (Robyn Rominger is a reporter in Winters. She may be contacted at robynrominger.com.) Grower embraces no-input farming, celebrates yields By Robyn Rominger Scott Park is a first-generation farmer who began producing rice in the 1970s
using conventional agricultural practices. After a decade in production, he took a
chance on converting to organic. Today, his Park Farming Organics in Meridian raises 100% certified organic rice. Until recently, Park managed 1,400 acres of or- ganic crops, which he says are “spread over 10 miles on 24 fields.” The Sutter County farmer is an advocate for the organic rice sector. Park, a mentor farmer with the Center for Regenerative Agriculture and Resilient Systems at California State University, Chico, also en- courages University of California research- ers and farm advisors to work with growers to enhance organic rice production. “Rice is part of the whole organic farm system, and you can’t use a convention- al mindset to farm organically,” Park said last month at a UC Cooperative Extension meeting on organic rice production. “Researchers need to help organic farmers solve problems with an organic mindset that is more about cultural practices than it is about chemicals.” See GROWER, Page 10
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8 Ag Alert August 23, 2023
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