Surrounded By Rice Farms

Posted on | September 30, 2008 |

Whenever we leave our home, we always pass one rice field or two. I never really thought about it, but we could be passing fields of grain that may later appear on our kitchen table. You have to really be passionate about your work if you’re a farmer because the livin’ (or workin’) ain’t easy. Thank goodness there is somebody out there who enjoys the work, otherwise, many tables would be bare. We truly owe them a lot of gratitude.

Over the years, we have visited a lot of farms and one thing I’ve realized is that farmers really like sharing the work they do. We had the opportunity to visit Montna Farms in Dingville, California, which is family owned and managed. The farm scales over 2600 acres of which 1200 is deemed as easement for wildlife conservation, which also ensures the security of the acreage as farm land for future generations.

Jon, our tour guide, works at Montna Farms during the day farming rice and at night he goes home to his own farm where he also grows rice. While we were waiting, I started questioning him and decided to give him a break so he wouldn’t have to repeat himself. He was full of information and just as excited as were we about the impending tour. Montna Farms grows super premium, short grain rice (also organic walnuts) used in sushi and other Asian dishes. Most of their customers are high-end restaurants and companies that serve and produce specialty foods. If you ever see Tamanishiki bagged rice, then it probably came from rice that was processed at Montna Farms.

Planting of the rice begins in March, which starts with four days of flooding the fields with water into which the seeds are dropped in by airplane. Great precision is required when planting by air to ensure the seeds land in the prepared beds. There are 125 pounds of seeds per acre that are planted which yields approximately six to seven thousand pounds of rice production for the year.

The crop grows through mid-August when the fields are drained in preparation for harvesting which usually begins in September. Several thrashers, which cut 25 feet wide, are run through the fields to cut the rice stalks.

The stalks are sent through another machine which separates the stalk (or straw) from the kernels. The straw used to be left for waste because it is very coarse and too hard on the digestive system of animals. It has only been recently that rice straw has become a commodity and now is another means of profit, although minimal, being repurposed as art, used in straw bale building, etc.

This is carbohydrate overload like you’ve never seen it before.

Montna Farms not only processes the rice they harvest, but they also receive rice from other farmers for processing. The first stop is quality control and moisture testing which determines how much they will pay for drying the rice. The probe dips into the rice and records the reading. The more moist, the better the quality.