July 1, 2024 at 5:00 a.m.
Stability for Stuttgart comes from being a prime destination for duck hunters and a focus of the state's extensive rice industry.
Today at 2:06 a.m.
by Rex Nelson
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Ducks swim and fly at Halowell Reservoir near Stuttgart, Ark., in this Oct. 26, 2006, photo. Rain, sleet and cold air that hit the state recently will help attract more ducks a spokesman for the state Game and Fish Commission said Friday, Dec. 1, 2006. (AP Photo/Danny Johnston)
Ducks swim and fly at Halowell Reservoir near Stuttgart, Ark., in this Oct. 26, 2006, photo. Rain, sleet and cold air that hit the state recently will help attract more ducks a spokesman for the state Game and Fish Commission said Friday, Dec. 1, 2006. (AP Photo/Danny Johnston)
Like most towns in the eastern half of Arkansas, Stuttgart has experienced population loss for the past four decades. In the 1980 census, the city that's considered the capital of the Grand Prairie had 10,941 residents. By the 2020 census, it was down to 8,264.
Still, there's a feeling of vitality here that's not present in the majority of east Arkansas towns. Stuttgart remains the center of the state's rice industry and the duck hunting capital of America. Even as duck populations have declined in recent years, the number of visiting hunters continues to increase. And many of them have plenty of money to spend.
"The rice industry gives us stability in Stuttgart," says Jay co*ker, a farmer with deep roots in this area.
co*ker's father and grandfather were pharmacists. What's now co*ker Hampton Drug Co. and Gift Shop in downtown Stuttgart was founded in 1928. These days, the business contains not only a pharmacy but also a wellness center and all kinds of gifts. Pharmacists Tommy co*ker (Jay's grandfather) and Bill Hampton founded the company. James Bethea, who began working as a pharmacist here in 1993, purchased it from Jack co*ker (Jay's father) in 1997.
Jay co*ker worked on farms as a boy. He decided he'd rather farm full-time than be a pharmacist.
co*ker obtained a degree in agricultural business from the University of Arkansas at Fayetteville, worked for the Tindall family on its farm for two years and then worked for three years as a crop consultant for Southern Farmers Association, a farm supply cooperative organized in 1947.
"In 1994, I made the decision to go out on my own," co*ker says. "I started farming my mother's family farm. George Dunklin also rented me some land. It just grew from there."
co*ker now farms almost 7,000 acres, about 5,000 of which are planted in rice. Soybeans and corn are the other crops he grows. We ride in his truck through the fields as he shows me pumps that draw water out of the Bayou Meto for irrigation. We view reservoirs, some of which were built as early as the 1940s, and some as late as the 1990s. Water is a constant issue here.
We pull up to the farm headquarters, and I ask co*ker what the antennas are for. He tells me they're for soil moisture sensors. Technology has changed farming drastically during the past decade. co*ker monitors soil moisture and irrigation ditch levels on an iPad. His tractors and combines are equipped with computers. During planting and harvest seasons, his office resembles NASA Mission Control as he tracks various types of data.
"I keep up with everything from fuel consumption to where everyone is in the fields," co*ker says. "It's highly technical. I can analyze yield performance by soil type, by each field. As long as I have a cell signal, I can access it. ... We all have iPhones and Facebook, so we use the Messenger app. I can drop a location pin to identify the next field I want them to harvest. The drivers know where to go without making a phone call or typing out directions."
Like other farmers on the Grand Prairie, he makes extra money off waterfowlers each winter. His Dry Lake Hunting Service is 15 miles south of Stuttgart and two miles east of the Arkansas Game and Fish Commission's Bayou Meto Wildlife Management Area. The club on Stillwell School Road has a lodge built in 2005.
There are eight pits and one blind for hunters scattered across two farms. The overnight facilities utilized by hunters in the winter can be used to house farm workers from early spring until the harvest ends in the fall.
"We go from field prep in February to planting the crops, irrigating the crops, harvesting the crops through August and September," co*ker once told an interviewer. "There's a small window to deal with non-farm issues, including financial situations for new crops, marketing opportunities, analyzing the operations to see what changes we need to make, maintaining the equipment, getting everything ready to go, getting rid of the winter floods and drying the ground up for the spring.
"It's great soil for producing rice, but man, it takes a long time to dry out. Spring rains make it even more of a challenge."
In addition to farming thousands of acres and running a hunting club, co*ker serves (along with his wife Misti) as a sort of ambassador for the Grand Prairie. He is also chairman of the board of Producers Rice Mill. Two of the world's largest rice cooperatives--Producers and Riceland Foods--are headquartered in Stuttgart.
"For years rice farmers have cut rice and delivered it green to those two cooperatives," co*ker told Farm Progress. "They dry it, store it, mill it and have marketing programs that allow farmers to sell on a daily cash price, forward contract or place rice in a marketing pool."
Riceland was founded as the Arkansas Rice Growers Cooperative Association in 1921. The name was changed to Riceland Foods in 1970, and the cooperative began investing in other areas to increase the value of being a member. By the early 1970s, there were 22 dryer divisions, each operating with its own board of directors. There also were three processing facilities.
In a 1975 story on Riceland, J. David Morrissy wrote: "No longer were rice growers its only members. In fact, its 20,000 soybean grower-members outnumber rice growers four to one. Nor were the members merely growers of crops. Through their cooperative, they have become innovative manufacturers of processed foods, feedstuffs and industrial products."
The rice industry shifted its focus to Arkansas, which now grows about half the nation's rice. Stuttgart was ground zero.
"In the late 19th century, most of America's rice was grown in Louisiana," writes Arkansas historian Nancy Hendricks. "Around 1900, William H. Fuller from Carlisle went to Louisiana on a hunting trip. He noticed that conditions there for growing rice were similar to those in the Grand Prairie region of Arkansas, which at the time was used primarily for grazing cattle. Its hard-pan clay, resting less than a foot atop the loam, was well suited for irrigation and retention of the volume of water necessary for a rice crop.
"After experimenting, Fuller produced his first successful Arkansas rice crop in 1904. Early rice farmers lacked a consistent market. They were dependent on buyers from Texas or Louisiana who passed through Arkansas sporadically. In addition, the farmers had no way to store their crop for long periods in slack times until market conditions improved. In 1907, a group of farmers decided to strengthen their market situation, building the first Arkansas rice mill. It became known as Stuttgart Rice Mill Co. and was followed in 1910 by a second mill."
Prices fluctuated wildly during and after World War I. In 1920, they dropped from $3 to 30 cents a bushel. The formation of what later became Riceland was an attempt to stabilize the situation. Members of the cooperative leased enough rice mills so their rice could be sold as a finished product.
"After initial setbacks, the Stuttgart-based group reorganized in 1926 and then began steady growth," Hendricks writes. "With the availability of modern combines and an artificial drying process, rice became a popular crop to grow in Arkansas. In 1944, the first local grain-drying cooperative was organized, followed by locals at Jonesboro and Wheatley in 1945. More local drying cooperatives were subsequently formed."
Producers, meanwhile, was born at Stuttgart in 1943. Utilizing a mill built in 1916 by Standard Rice Co., Producers milled 517,000 bushels the first year and had assets of $125,000. Producers now mills more than 60 million bushels a year. Services were expanded in 1946 when Producers Dryer Inc. was organized to take care of members' rice-drying needs. The dryer handled 126,488 bushels of rice its first season.
In 1954, government acreage controls were imposed on rice farmers, who responded by planting far more soybeans than in previous years. In 1958, the board of what's now Riceland formed a sister organization called the Arkansas Grain Cooperative. It shared receiving, drying and storage facilities for soybeans with a soybean processing plant in Stuttgart. The Arkansas Rice Growers Cooperative and the Arkansas Grain Cooperative merged and the name Riceland Foods was adopted in 1970.
During the 1970s, dramatic legislative changes affected the industry. Previously, only farmers with rice allotments could grow rice under the U.S. farm program. After rice allotments were lifted, rice acreage in Arkansas, Mississippi and Missouri more than doubled.
Producers responded by purchasing the Gibbs-Harris rice drying and storage elevator at Wynne in 1973. Expansion continued in northeast Arkansas for the remainder of the decade. A strong demand for parboiled rice (rice that has been partially boiled in the husk) in Europe, parts of Asia and Africa led to Producers building its first parboil plant in 1979.
During the 1980s and 1990s, Producers acquired Arkansas facilities in Wilson, Tyronza, Fair Oaks, DeWitt, Dixie, Pine Bluff, Eudora and Wilmot along with one in Boyle, Miss. In October 2001, Producers purchased the A.C. Humko plant at Greenville, Miss. It included a white rice mill, parboil mill, rice flour mill and a barge-loading facility on the Mississippi River.
In October 2003, Producers acquired an adjoining facility in Stuttgart, adding 26 acres, two warehouses, an office and 1.64 million bushels of storage.
Riceland was also expanding during the 1970s, '80s and '90s. It became an industrial supplier to companies such as General Mills, Gerber, Kellogg's and Anheuser-Busch. Its products were exported to more than 75 foreign destinations.
"Riceland's business lines grew to include consumer products and food service industry products in addition to grain storage and rice milling," Hendricks writes. "Its product lines included rice, rice flours, rice oil, rice feed, bran and hulls, soybean meal, soybean oil, soft red winter wheat and edible oils including corn, canola, peanut and cottonseed. In the grain merchandising division, soybeans, rice and wheat were sold as raw grains.
"Its feed products served the livestock and poultry industries as well as catfish processors. The Riceland Research & Technical Center, which also houses a product development division, operated in Stuttgart. In 1996, Riceland purchased the world's largest rice husk gasification-to-energy system from PRM Energy Systems Inc. The system converts rice husks to clean energy."
co*ker shows me the 160 acres Producers uses for a massive solar project. The 20-megawatt solar array is supported by a battery storage facility. It provides two-thirds of Producers' energy needs in Stuttgart. Keith Glover, Producers' chief executive officer, says the solar facility will produce millions of dollars in savings during the next 30 years.
"It furthers our commitment to sustainability and delivers greater economic security as we continue our tradition of providing one of the world's most important foods," Glover says. "In addition, our solar power plant, battery storage and microgrid will allow Producers to deliver power to the utility grid during times of stress, providing a huge benefit for other utility customers."
Producers has more than 2,000 members who grow 350,000 acres of rice in Arkansas, Mississippi, Louisiana and Missouri. The Stuttgart facility now mills more than 40 million bushels of rice each year. The cooperative has four rice mills and 12 storage and receiving locations in Arkansas and Mississippi.
Riceland has member farmers in Arkansas, Louisiana, Mississippi, Missouri and Texas. The cooperative utilizes trucks, barges and rail to haul products, many of which are transported around the world.
"The lifeblood of this community has always been agriculture," co*ker says. "That's not about to change."
