Rice in Florida

I love Jasmine Rice but with my exploration with getting fit, I wanted to switch up my rice and move to brown rice or wild rices. That's when I thought "Does Florida grow rice?" and I was surprised that we do! I always thought rice had to be grown in areas where it rained alot and though Florida has a rainy season, it is not extreme like China or Japan.  I love the aromatic qualities of Jasmine Rice. Its nice and light with floral scent to it. Wild Rice just has a rustic earthiness to it. For me it smells of the earth much more than the white rice verity.  I have a rice cooker and make flawless rice however when it comes to brown rices it is a different story. It is crunchy and the mouth feel is chalky when I cook it. With this being said I have avoided it but this week I got a tip from a fellow foodie and she said to bake it. This weekend I will get some wild rice and try it out.

Back to Florida growing rice, I find this really fascinating that we do not grow rice for consumption but for soil conservation.  Rice is grown in an area of Florida designated as the Everglades Agricultural Area (EAA), characterized by organic soil deposits surrounded by sand soils. The soil conservation and conditioning benefits attributed to rice are extremely important. For this reason, 98.5% of the rice grown is as a summer rotation with either sugarcane or vegetables. This information is from a 2000 Florida Rice Census located at University of Florida IFAS Extension. I haven't found any current information regarding how often a Rice Census is conducted. I did reach out to Mr.Deren who was a contact in the article Gourmet-Style Thai Jasmine Rice May Be Future U.S. Crop however the email came back saying it was not able to be delivered. I reached out to him because he was working with  gamma rays to change the genetic makeup of the rice in order to stop the Rice from being Day Length Sensitive and encourage faster growth.

So bottom line we don't eat much of the rice that is grown in Florida so it doesn't make me feel so bad that my rice is shipped from half way across the world. Perhaps I can limit the distance by looking for USA Rice Brands. Take a look at USA Rice Federation for more information.