Because Riceland is a cooperative, it is owned by its members, most of whom are rice farmers. Rice farming began in Stuttgart in the early 1900s. In 1921 a handful of Stuttgart rice farmers who wanted to build a more effective way of marketing their products banded together to form Riceland.
(Click here for our full article on Riceland.)
Bill Reed, vice president of corporate communications for Riceland, said about 7,000 farmers in Arkansas and Missouri were now Riceland members. Its 24-member board sets company policy and hires management. The cooperative produces milled white rice, brown rice, parboiled rice, flavored rice mixes, rice flour, rice bran oil and de-fatted rice bran. It sells rice hulls that can be burned to produce steam and electricity for the company’s processing facilities. Members also use Riceland for processing soybeans, wheat and corn.
Farmers send their grain to be processed at Riceland’s mills. It has three in Stuttgart, two in Jonesboro and one each in Waldenburg (Poinsett County) and New Madrid, Mo.
The cooperative’s products include packaged rice bags that go to retail markets and huge, up to 50-pound cubes that are sold to restaurants. Large bags are sold through wholesale retailers like Sam’s Club and Costco. Food manufacturers can buy the rice in 2,000 pound bags.
Reed said Riceland soybeans were processed into soybean meal, which is primarily used by the Arkansas poultry and aquaculture industries, and oil, which is refined in Stuttgart alongside corn, cottonseed and peanut oils to be sold to the food service market.
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