By Carah Hart

In its June acreage report, the USDA said the U.S. rice planted area fell to a multi-decade low this spring, while cotton acres were higher than expected.

Hunter Biram, an ag economist with University of Arkansas Extension, says he’s not surprised, and it’s concerning U.S. rice acres are the lowest since the 1970s.

“I’ve had people ask me questions about the sustainability in the long term viability of the rice industry,” he says. “Really when we start talking about this, we’re talking about acreage that we haven’t seen since the 70s, and actually, this number, the 730,000 long grain rice acres, is pretty close to what the industry was thinking. A lot of people, industry that I talked to thought it’d be about 750,000.”

Biram says the ripple effects of the rice production declines are being felt in Arkansas, the largest rice producing state in the country.

“Riceland Foods shut down nine grain dryers across the state, Producers Rice Mill, another large cooperative in the state, I’ve heard at least that they’re thinking about closing some dryers, too,” he says. “I mean, these are significant closures across the industry with two of the probably the largest rice co-ops in the state.”

He says even with a reduction in rice acres, the U.S. will have roughly the same amount of rice on hand this year compared to the previous marketing year.

Biram tells Brownfield the increase in cotton acres makes sense, with the largest increase in Georgia and the largest acreage decline in Arkansas.

“When you’re looking at the net returns of our major principal crops: cotton, corn, rice and soybeans, cotton’s net return is nearly $200 an acre loss.”

He says the Delta had a more than 600,000-acre swing toward soybeans compared to the last growing season, a shift away from cotton and rice.

Published Date: July 1, 2026