A multicultural rice blend

Dusty gravel roads off of main highways often lead to places that are like oases in the desert. One of these roads in particular is called Sigfroi Road that jets off of the L’Anse Aux Pailles Highway in rural southeastern Evangeline Parish and leads to a farm on Oduis Road that is turning the rice world upside down.
James Farms produces Prairie Ronde Rice and is operated by partners Beth James and Rolando Sanchez. Sanchez, because of his efforts in soil and water conservation, was named the USDA Farmer of the Year for 2017.
According to James, one of the things that separates her brand of rice from the herd is that it is a single variety. “A lot of people like the Jazzmen Rice or the Pecan Rice,” she said. “I think the reason they like it is because it’s aromatic, but what they really like is that it cooks so well. We have that same quality in our rice because it’s a single variety.”
“Not only is it not a hybrid, but, when you go buy rice in a bag from Supreme or one of other mills, it could be from 20 different farmers and from 20 different varieties,” she continued. “They cook at different rates. It’s all good Louisiana rice, but that’s what makes our rice different.”
Another difference from other rice in the area is that Prairie Ronde Rice is milled fresh. As James put it, “We just milled some rice to go to Texas this week, and it’s going to be in a restaurant next week. It makes a difference having it freshly milled. It actually tastes like rice.”
Sanchez added another aspect that separates his rice from others in the area. He explained that they try not to use pesticides. “We try to do something different from the other farmers even at the expense that we do not produce as much rice,” he stated, “but we’re trying to offer a better product of rice. I can call it pesticide free.”
As James pointed out, one other big difference is that Prairie Ronde Rice only serves up long grain rice. “I’ve been talking to people in the grocery stores and people who own chains of grocery stores,” she said. “Only in the Lafayette and Opelousas area do they use the medium or short grain. Everywhere else in the country, they use long grain rice.”
“Medium grain gets a little bit stickier,” said Sanchez. “It sticks together, and when you cook long grain right, it’s going to separate.”
Both James and Sanchez have farming in their blood because of growing up in farming operations.
James is a fifth generation farmer, and her family’s farm land in Prairieville (south of Baton Rouge in Ascension Parish) has been in their name since the Homestead Act of 1862. “My family has always farmed that land,” she stated. “My great-great-grandfather, my great-grandfather, my grandfather, and my dad grew everything. They grew strawberries, peanuts, sugarcane, and whatever they could sell. We have cattle there now and have had the same herd for five generations. I’m getting ready to get rid of my herd because we’re completely surrounded by development.”
When she was four-years-old, James’ parents moved to Opelousas where she grew up, but she still spent her summers back on the farm in Prairieville. “My earliest memory in my life was the summer that my grandfather gave me a calf, and his name was Henry,” she uttered. “I spent my whole summer taking care of Henry. Then, I went back the next summer and asked my grandfather where was Henry. He said, ‘Well, you’re eating him.’ I didn’t eat meat for seven years until Henry was way out of the freezer.”
“I hated that, but my grandfather was a real farmer,” she added. “He was tough, and we watched him castrate horses and do some really brutal things when we were kids that made us understand the connection between the land and survival. So, those were really valuable lessons to me.”
Sanchez, who came from Mexico, grew up helping his dad farm on 10 acres. “He grew tomatoes, peppers, cabbage, and small vegetables,” he said. “Every time he planted something it was an acre of this and an acre of that. I used to help him do it. I like to be out there, and I don’t like to be inside a building. It really makes me feel good to be outside.”
When he came to James Farms in 1981, his view of farming was turned upside down. “When I came here and saw the different ways people farm over here than in Mexico, I was just surprised how big it was over here,” he expressed. “My dad had a small farm. When I came here and saw 1,000 acres that people are farming, that was something completely different than the way we did it over there in Mexico.”
James said that Sanchez ran the farm previously for her father and that the two joined forces after her father’s passing. “My father passed away in 2005, and I was in New Orleans,” she said. “We lost our home in Katrina, and so Rolando was out here by himself. We sat down, and I asked him what he wanted to do. He said that he wanted to make this farm more money, and so that’s what we’re trying to do.”
Thus was the genesis of Prairie Ronde Rice. The farm, in the past, was growing rice for the crawfish. However, the pair of James and Sanchez wanted to add value while addressing issues that are becoming too important to consumers such as where is their food coming from. “We were out here cutting the rice, and I thought it was just ironic that I was sitting on top of rice,” said James.
She continued, “We had always talked about what we were going to do with crawfish, but we never considered that we could do something more with our rice. It seemed so much easier than building a crawfish processing plant. We started looking into it, and we looked at mills from India and Japan. We bought this mill from Brazil which we really liked. The only problem was is that I speak French and he speaks Spanish, but the instructions were in Portuguese. We figured it out and built a mill.”
What has happened since has led to Sanchez receiving his recognition as Farmer of the Year. “Where I think we’re very like-minded is that land is valuable, not from a monetary sense but, from preserving it for the future,” James concluded. “The next generation is going to have to have places to farm and to get food from. If we don’t take care of the land and put it in better shape than we got it, then we’re not doing our job.”