2007 Rice Award Winners Honored at USA Rice Outlook Luncheon

ORLANDO, FL, December 3, 2007 — FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

Contact: David Coia, (703) 236-2300

Clarence Berken, Dr. Joe Street and Dr. Steve Linscombe, the winners of the 2007 Rice Awards, were honored here today at the USA Rice Outlook Conference for their significant contributions to the rice industry. Syngenta, Rice Farming magazine and the USA Rice Federation sponsor the prestigious rice industry awards.

“The men chosen for these awards are proven leaders in their fields,” USA Rice Federation President and CEO Betsy Ward said. “Clarence Berken has emerged as a key rice-industry leader. He has taken the reins of the USA Rice Council and his work on the USA Rice Import Rice Task Force has garnered widespread industry attention.”

“It challenges the imagination to wonder where the industry would have been without the rice research conducted by Drs. Joe Street and Steve Linscombe,” Ward said. “Their complementary work and oversight on herbicides and cultivars continues to go a long way to make the industry what it is today.”

Rice Farmer of the Year

Berken, of Thornwell, LA, is this year’s Rice Farmer of the Year. To address red rice and water quality issues, “Berken practices a combination of fall stale seed bed, true no-till rice behind soybeans, grooving and conventional pin-point flooding on most of his rice acreage,” says the December issue of Rice Farming magazine. The magazine also notes his “outstanding agricultural and leadership skills, noting his effort with the Louisiana Rice Growers Association to “refurbish a bulk loading terminal at the Port of Lake Charles.”

Berken, who farms 2,150 acres of rice, 1,100 acres of soybeans and 300 acres of winter wheat, holds an agricultural engineering degree from the University of Southwestern Louisiana.

Rice Industry Award

Dr. Joe Street, head of the Delta Research and Extension Center in Stoneville, MS, is recognized for his development of herbicide labels and his academic contribution to the rice industry, including the publication of nearly 50 peer-reviews papers, including his co-authorship of a chapter in the 2002 book Rice: Origin, History, Technology and Production.

Street, who took his doctorate degree in weed science from Auburn University, retired from the Army National Guard with the rank of lieutenant colonel.

Lifetime Achievement

The 16 rice cultivars that Lifetime Achievement Award recipient Dr. Steve Linscombe and his colleagues have released so far represent 60 percent of the rice produced in the United States, according to Rice Farming magazine.

Linscombe, who took his doctorate degree in agronomy and plant breeding from Mississippi State University in 1982, was also recognized for helping to “expand the Puerto Rico rice breeding nursery,” the magazine says. He hails from Gueydan, LA, and is the Louisiana State University administrator for research and extension services in the Southwestern region. Linscombe is also the administrator of the Rice Research Station in Crowley, LA.

“I have been fortunate to have received several awards during my career, but this honor is by far the most meaningful,” he told Rice Farming magazine.

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The USA Rice Federation is the global advocate for all segments of the U.S. rice industry with a mission to promote and protect the interests of producers, millers, merchants and allied businesses.