Global Advocate for the U.S. Rice Industry

USA Rice staff participated in field days across the Delta during August, catching up with a wide cross section of the industry based in Arkansas, Mississippi, and Missouri. Next week USA Rice staff is headed to California to attend their field day on August 28. Full story

This week, staff from the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Risk Management Agency (RMA) toured Arkansas to talk with rice farmers and see irrigation methods like alternate wetting and drying (AWD) and furrow irrigated (or row) rice firsthand. RMA is actively working to provide crop insurance coverage for these two irrigation methods. Full story

Everyone is looking for ways to decrease single-use plastic consumption, and disposable plastic straws have become a lightning rod in the worldwide effort to reduce plastic waste. Recently, scientists and manufacturers have turned to a new revolutionary material that could make single-use plastics in the foodservice industry obsolete: rice. Full story