Supporting Louisiana’s Rice Farmers

Fighting Hunger and Disease, One Strain of Rice at a Time

 BATON ROUGE, LOUISIANA

The LSU AgCenter is Louisiana rice farmers’ MVP, or most valued partner, in research and crop variety development. From creating a new market for jasmine rice, to producing varieties of rice that are better for diabetics and more sustainable and resilient to changes in the environment, the LSU AgCenter has been critical to the Louisiana rice industry for more than 100 years. The research also has world-wide impact since one-fifth of the global population’s calories comes from rice.

“The value of LSU’s rice breeding program? Invaluable. You can’t put a price tag on it,” said Bobby Hanks, CEO of Supreme Rice in Crowley, the state’s largest rice mill, which processes over one billion pounds of rice each year. “Between 60 and 70 percent of the rice we mill are LSU varieties.”

That percentage holds true across the state. More than 60 percent of the rice Louisiana farmers plant comes from the LSU AgCenter, with a direct economic impact of $580 million. New varieties are being developed all the time, including at the nation’s first rice research station, in Crowley, Louisiana, an eight-minute drive from Supreme Rice in the heart of Acadiana rice country.

“Without LSU’s breeding program, our farmers would have to depend on programs in other states, and their rice doesn’t grow well here,” Hanks said. “Our industry as a whole would wither and die—it would be hard to survive without LSU.”

While Supreme mostly processes and sells long grain rice, primarily developed by the LSU AgCenter, they also process and sell jasmine rice, wholly developed by the LSU AgCenter.

“Jasmine is a specialty rice that’s gained in popularity, and all the varieties of jasmine rice that are grown in Louisiana and across most of the South come from the program here,” said Adam Famoso, director of LSU AgCenter’s H. Rouse Caffey Rice Research Station in Crowley, known as the Rice Capital of the World. “Before we had jasmine rice, a U.S. market didn’t exist. LSU helped create that market, but we also needed farmers and merchants who were willing to take a chance on it.” ∆

LSU AgCenter