By V. Todd Miller, LSU communications specialist
CROWLEY, LA — “Y’all sure go through a lot of trouble to get your rice. We just buy it at the store.”
So were the words of a young cousin of Louisiana Rice Promotion Board Chair Kane Fontenot when first introduced to the rice harvesting process. Fontenot recounted the story to high schoolers from 15 parishes across the state at the pilot “Growing Careers … Beyond the Rice Field” program, held here last week at the Louisiana State University (LSU) AgCenter H. Rouse Caffey Rice Research Station.
The brainchild of AgCenter extension agents and Louisiana rice growers, the program aims to get high-achieving students interested in the science behind agriculture and make them aware of the career opportunities available in a variety of interconnected fields.
“This is targeted to a teen audience for them to discover all the career possibilities in the rice industry, highlighting all the work done here at the Rice Research Station,” said Lanette Hebert, 4-H coordinator for the AgCenter Southwest Region. “They walked through every lab, getting hands-on experience with professors and research associates sharing with them a typical day and discussing their own educational background as well.”
Hebert said applications for the daylong program were sent statewide with approximately 50 returned. Of those, 30 were chosen to attend to keep the day’s activities as personalized as possible.
Julie Richard, a rice producer in Acadia and Vermilion Parishes who helped organize the event, said the day was meant to show students the ins and outs of rice production.
“We invited seven industry personnel — whether it is packaging, sales, chemicals, seed, technology or policy — to speak to the students so they get every different aspect of the industry,” Richard said. “This is to recruit future scientists, businesspeople, and industry leaders that might not know what we do here on a day-to-day basis.”
On the science front, students learned about planting, harvesting, plant disease, and destructive insects from AgCenter researchers who were enthusiastic about sharing their collective knowledge with those in attendance. Rice Research Associate Jacob Fluitt flexed his 17 years of experience by walking students through the rice growing process in one of the research station’s on-site labs.
“We are doing a small project where each student is planting pots with rice, then they will apply a fertilizer, take them home and see the results,” he said. “It shows them that there’s a lot more science to rice farming than they may have thought.”
During the networking lunch where — of course — the rice-centric dish jambalaya was the main course, the seven industry leaders sat with students to answer questions about the industry at large. Fontenot, who serves as a vice chair of the USA Rice Council, emphasized the importance of getting young adults interested in all forms of agriculture.
“They’re our future, so that is why we wanted to help sponsor this,” he said. “There are fewer and fewer people getting into agriculture, so we need to continue to educate this group on why it is so important.”