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U.S. Rice Harvest Delayed by Flooding
USAgNet - 08/24/2016

Heavy rain that brought record flooding to Louisiana recently has put a damper on the nation's harvest of rice, a food staple that usually likes water as it grows but can't be gathered by machine if fields are inundated.

While rice is an aquatic plant, this is the time of year when farmers drain their land and roll in heavy equipment for the harvest. The Associated Press reports that some fields remain unreachable in parts of Arkansas and Louisiana.

The 2016 crop was expected to be 26 percent larger than 2015's, according to Eric Wailes, an agricultural economist at the University of Arkansas. Losing part of this year's crop shouldn't trigger price increases for rice used for food, or for cereal or beer that use rice as an ingredient, he said.

November rice prices climbed from $9.515 per hundredweight on Aug. 12 to $10.31 on Friday. For a time last week, they were at $10.70, which was up 12 percent over two business days.


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