Delta Harvest Creates Pilot Program to Help Smaller Farms
Excerpts from the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette, "Sixth-generation Arkansas farmer creates pilot program to help smaller farms"
Date: 8 May 2024
Author: Christina LaRue
Sixth-generation Arkansas farmer and climate activist Hallie Shoffner has created a pilot program designed to help smaller farms -- particularly those operated by female and minority farmers -- to promote specialty rice in Arkansas and Mississippi.
Shoffner said she hopes to promote the production of specialty rice, to increase the commercial value of rice and benefit traditionally underserved small to mid-size farming operations, while also lowering the carbon footprint of farms by promoting more sustainable farm practices.
"We are focused on our values, which is sustainably sourced rice, or climate-friendly, socially responsible, in terms of supplier diversity as we work primarily with women and minority farmers, and then scientific development, so using new technologies to develop rice that is more resilient in the face of climate change," Shoffner said.
Shoffner started two pilot programs under her new [organization, Delta Harvest] of which she is the founder and CEO.
Fourth-generation Mississippi row crop farmer Christi Bland, owner of CMB Farm, LLC and a board member on the National Black Growers Council, said she plans to grow a new variety of rice on her farm; Bland's farm is 30 minutes from Helena-West Helena, and she grows rice, soybeans, corn and sometimes wheat.
Bland grows traditional hybrid rice seed but said she was looking to add value to her farm operation and said she appreciated that Shoffner wants to make a difference with these pilot projects.
"It also provided some premium to add additional revenue to our small operation," Bland said.
"I think this will definitely open more doors to opportunities for smaller growers because we only grow 300 to 350 acres of rice every year, so we wouldn't be able to fill a contract by ourselves, so this would give us the opportunity to still take part in it, to learn and to be able to expand," Bland continued.
For this program, the participating smaller and underserved farmers essentially share larger contracts to grow specialty rice, Shoffner said.
"We are marketing specialty rice brands that are suitable for the mid-South and marketing them to big brands," Shoffner said.
"We want to secure our food supply chain, and in doing so, we understand that we need to have more specialty rice grown in more regions of the country."
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