Nathan Childs (left) accepts his new rice artwork from USA Rice Chair Keith Glover
Feb 12, 2026
WASHINGTON, DC -- This week during the DC Fly-In, USA Rice presented Nathan Childs with the 2026 USA Rice Lifetime Achievement Award in recognition of his long and wonderful career that has been a bridge between domestic realities and global markets, between data and decision-making, and between analysis and action.
Childs recently retired from the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Economic Research Service after nearly 39 years of service as an agricultural economist with the ERS Crops Branch of the Market and Trade Economics Division.
A South Carolina native, Childs received both undergraduate and doctoral degrees in economics from Clemson University as well as an MBA from the University of Georgia, and a master’s degree in history from The George Washington University here in DC. Before coming to DC to work at USDA, he was a First Lieutenant in the South Carolina Army National Guard from 1980 to 1986.
Childs joined the ERS in 1987 where he worked on a variety of topics including U.S. rice consumption patterns, global trade liberalization, and farm program analysis. He also supported emerging market projects to Taiwan, China, Vietnam, and Haiti. In the early 1990s, he was editor of USDA’s weekly Agricultural Outlook magazine.
“As a world class economist, Nathan brought rigor, clarity, and fairness to some of the most complex global market dynamics we face. His work didn’t just inform reports or briefings, it informed decisions, policy debates, and long-term strategies across the entire rice value chain,” said USA Rice Chair Keith Glover when he introduced Nathan at the World Market Price meeting today. “Farmers, millers, merchants, policymakers, and traders all relied on his analysis not because it told them what they wanted to hear, but because they knew it was deeply informed.”
Glover presented Nathan with a framed print of an Arkansas rice field in thanks for his integrity, intellect, and decades of service to U.S. agriculture and the global rice community.