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Missouri celebrates Rice Month as harvest gets underway
September is rice month in Missouri, with the official proclamation made this week in the Missouri Bootheel.
Mollie Buckler with USA Rice works closely with the Missouri Rice Council and tells Brownfield “Missouri is fourth in the nation historically for rice production. Typically, around 200,000 acres are grown in about seven counties in southeast Missouri.”
She says acreage has dipped below average this year in Missouri, but farmers are optimistic about harvest.
“We have some farmers to the west in our region and deep south in the Bootheel starting to cut rice. Things are going well. The crop looks good. We’re definitely dealing with some market issues that contributed to that, you know, low acreage number that we saw this year.”
Buckler says there’s optimism the lower acreage will provide balance to the marketplace.
The rice month proclamation was made at Harvest Hope, an event hosted by the Southeast Missouri Food Bank and Missouri Rice Council in Sikeston on Tuesday.
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