Rice Tec's 25th Anniversary
ROB MILLS
PERRYVILLE, MISSOURI
If you do not follow the world of agriculture closely, the issue of rice at first might seem to be a faraway matter, a crop grown primarily in Asia, with images of rice patties and bamboo huts dancing in your head. But the truth of the matter is that rice has been grown in the United States since its inception. For nearly two centuries the crop was grown primarily in Georgia and South Carolina, with states such as North Carolina, Florida, Alabama, Mississippi and Louisiana involved in a lesser degree.
Then the emergence of irrigation technology began to move rice production into other areas such as Arkansas and Texas in the late 19th century, with California and Missouri joining the roster of states producing rice in the 20thcentury.
As the world arrived at the mid-point of the 20th century, rice producers and other farmers were dealing with a new and very different problem…a world crying out for more. The issues of food security that existed due to the destruction brought about by World War II had given way decades later to the droughts and famines that began to visit the earth in greater frequency in the second part of the 20th century.
The outcry for more production was accompanied by a harsh reality…where is all this new food production going to come from? That need provoked the greatest agricultural minds of the era to attempt to crack the atom of food production. In China, desperation caused by the Great Chinese Famine of 1959, inspired a young Chinese agricultural scientist to develop the process of creating hybrid rice. This innovation generated more rice per seed, yielded larger harvests, and ultimately provided more of the food that would first feed the Chinese people, and then the world.
Yuan Longping said the sight of watching his countrymen starve to death lead him to put his efforts into motion. Longping was not even 30 years old when he began his research on how to develop a hybrid rice seed. He was once quoted as saying he never forgot the sight of watching so many people die of famine. The culmination of his efforts led to the development of a hybrid rice seed that produced 30% more rice than conventional seed. The efficiency of the rice also saved water and acreage. By 1991 the United Nations reported that, due to hybrid rice development, global farmers were doubling rice production using half the water per acreage all due to the work of Longping, the man who has been since been known as ‘The Father of Hybrid Rice.” The bottom line…more people were being fed.
With that history in the rear-view mirror, a gathering was held in early August that celebrated the legacy Longping handed down to the generations of ag scientists who followed him….and the success of a company that took his work to a once unimagined level.
Harrisburg, Arkansas was the site for RiceTec’s 25th Anniversary Celebration of Hybrid Rice. The Texas-based company hosted an event to honor the collective efforts of the rice community — farmers, distributors, researchers, producers, and partners — acknowledging their joint efforts in advancing sustainable rice agriculture.
Almost 300 members of the U.S. agricultural industry came together to commemorate RiceTec’s impact on national and global agriculture. The setting was an area where the company’s successful Full-Page rice is grown, complete with the hybrid’s colorful green, yellow, and gold fields.
From its founding in 1988, to the development of their first hybrid rice offerings in 2000, RiceTec has worked to create what its CEO Karsten Neuffer calls the “rice ecosystem” of farmers, distributors, mills, researchers, producers, and financial partners. Building on the foundation of a vision that encompassed a sustainable agriculture partnership, an ag coalition was formed. Today, this coalition benefits from increased profitability, offers consumers better selection and value, and helps planet Earth by yielding 24% more rice than before the hybrid version emerged. This increase in production helps to provide the food to feed a hungry world, while leaving land, water supply, and the overall climate in a better place.
The obstacles faced by RiceTec when it was founded were simply getting a product into the market and having a seat at the table of the ag business world. Today, the company must navigate a global landscape with diverse cultures, as well as help to ensure that the populations in these various nations have enough to eat, a goal that can be significantly advanced through greater adoption of hybrid rice.
Over the past quarter century, it is estimated that the adoption of hybrid rice has contributed $4 billion of revenue to US farmers, while producing seeds that average acreage yields of 1,760 pounds, an increase of 24% over traditional yields. The bottom line is this…hybrid rice has been a game changer for the U.S. rice industry…and dramatically improved the bottom line.
Every celebration has its parade of speakers, and the RiceTec gathering was no exception. The first person to take the podium was Dr. Brian Ottis, RiceTec’s Director of U.S. Marketing and Product Management. Welcoming the crowd to an atmosphere that in some ways resembled a summertime church picnic, complete with food, beer, and a live band. Ottis spoke of a company that had a long-term plan and stuck with it. He also thanked those who had been with them from the beginning…and didn’t walk away.
Ottis then yielded the microphone to Van McNeely, RiceTec’s Americas Business Head. McNeely reminisced about the very first days of RiceTec, when the original 76 farmers partnered together by growing the new hybrid rice seed on an area of 12,500 acres in 1999. McNeely said their vision and guts to plant the seed brought about today’s widespread acceptance of hybrids, recognizing each customer in attendance who had been a customer for 25 years.
McNeely then handed the podium to Dr. Jarrod Hardke, a Professor at the University of Arkansas, and a Rice Extension Agronomist. Hardke focused his address on the impact hybrid seed has had on production systems. “The flexibility provided by hybrids has been a game changer for production systems, in particular the implementation of row rice,” he told the crowd of 300, noting that 20% of all rice planted in Arkansas is dedicated to row rice.
Hardke then introduced the man of the hour, RiceTec CEO Karsten Neuffer. Neuffer, who had just returned from a visit to India and China spoke of a community of industry pioneers, who helped create the rice hybrid phenomenon. “Why is there such significant hybrid penetration in the U.S.? It requires two key elements: dedicated commitment from an organization to develop the technology, and more importantly, the support of the entire ecosystem to make it happen. That’s why we’re here today, to celebrate our collective achievement of 25 years of hybrid rice,” Neuffer told the enthusiastic crowd.
But just a bit more about the man at the helm of RiceTec…
THE LEADER OF THE BAND
Karsten Neuffer, the CEO of RiceTec, came to the company in 2022 from Indigo, where he served as Chief Commercial Officer and Chief Operating Officer for the Boston-based company from 2018 to 2022. Before that, he worked for Syngenta from 2006 to 2018, eventually becoming Latin American Director from 2014 to 2018. After a decade of life in Sao Paulo, Brazil and then New England, he landed at RiceTec and took the helm. Neuffer describes himself as a man who is constantly learning. He says he came to RiceTec because of his passion for agriculture and the unique opportunity he sees for hybrid rice to create sustainable benefit for farmers, consumers, and the planet at a global scale.
When speaking to MAFG during the celebration, he smiled happily when asked about hybrid rice’s 25th anniversary gathering. “We maintain personal contact with our farmers through events like this,” he said. “We have developed an ecosystem of partnerships connecting farmers, rice buyers, exporters, and our overseas customers in countries like India, Vietnam, Italy, and Spain, and continents like North and South America. These are our partners, and they are our focus,” Neuffer said.
With an M.S. from the University of Karlsruhe and an MBA from the University of Chicago’s Booth School of Business, Neuffer, a native of Germany, has mastered the art of communication, both in personal interactions and during complex negotiations. He believes that to achieve great things, you must start from the basics.
“Agriculture across the globe is fundamentally a local challenge, starting with nature. Farmers everywhere must first contend with soil and climate issues, which persist year after year. The effort to achieve the best crop is a universal struggle for all farmers. Despite the diversity of people and cultures, farming globally faces similar challenges. We offer a rice product tailored to the specific climate conditions of each region where our farmers operate. Additionally, our company brings extensive experience in understanding market conditions wherever we are,” Neuffer said.
Neuffer’s leadership team at RiceTec consists of Jochen Schillinger, Chief Financial Officer; Chakra Sankaraiah, Chief Technology Officer; Megan DeYoung, Head of Transformation and Business Development; Andrei Golesteanu, Head of Human Resources; Amitabh Mohanty, Head of Global Research and Development; Van McNeely, Business Head, Americas and Ajai Rana, Business Head, Asia Pacific…
The CEO highlights that one of the company’s strengths is embracing daily challenges. “Rice comes in many variations—short and sticky, long and fluffy. We are constantly working on the genetic makeup of our rice. Tailoring our seeds to meet the needs of local farmers is at the heart of what we do.”
Neuffer admits he has been asked more than once about how he wound up at RiceTec, given his background in international agriculture. He answers “Rice is a fascinating crop, and I am passionate about rice. It is the most important staple crop grown in the world; its versatility is incredible. It takes up 400 million acres globally, it feed people, fuels vehicles, constructs buildings…it is a marvel of a product,” he concludes.
RiceTec has not only become a leader in hybrid rice research and development, but also a trendsetter concerning the issue of sustainable agriculture…an issue that didn’t exist when Yuan Longping began his work before JFK was elected President. The pioneers of hybrid rice couldn’t have predicted that sustainability would emerge as such a significant issue towards the end of the 20thcentury, nor that their creation would become such a major part of that movement.
The term “sustainability” is multi-faceted: in the world of agriculture is describes the collective efforts by farmers, scientists, agronomists, executives, and anyone else dedicated to preserving the viability of the land for crop production, habitation, and economic livelihood. That’s one definition. According to Neuffer, RiceTec has expanded this concept to include a vision of rice agriculture that creates more value for farmers, consumers, and the planet.
“RiceTec is on a mission to lead innovation for sustainable rice agriculture. Our goal is to develop innovative rice products and value-added traits to improve the yield, grain quality, and sustainability of hybrid rice cultivation.” He offered a practical example of how this philosophy of business…and life works.
“One thing we have been able to pioneer is a way of crop cultivation that brings management practices into a more holistic way of life for our farmers. One of the benefits of direct seeded hybrid rice is the fact that it uses less water compared to traditional methods. For the US only, hybrid rice adoption has created an additional $4 billion in revenue for farmers by enabling them to produce an additional 15 million metric tons of rice over 25 years. The adoption of hybrid rice is estimated to have saved more than a cumulative 18 million metric tons of CO2e emissions. Our partners will tell you; we’ve delivered. We’ve given to the rice ecosystem partners what they wanted from us,” Neuffer concluded.
After a quarter century, RiceTec has grown into an ag industry powerhouse. Not by improving tried and true methods but taking what was still an unknown quantity in the early 1990’s to U.S. and global ag markets and handing it off to the world in a way that they could make good use of it. With a man at the helm who visited with those attending the RiceTec celebration like he was just one of the guys, it’s evident what makes this company work. Brilliant people who understand the need to balance feeding hungry mouths, while satisfying the bottom line.
Amid all the clamor of the corporate world, they haven’t lost the human touch. ∆
ROB MILLS: Staff Writer MidAmerica Farmer Grower