How Producers Rice Leverages American Solar in Arkansas

Rice is king on the Grand Prairie. We're farming over a million acres of rice in the state of Arkansas. This is everything to this community. Our population is about 9,000 people roughly. And uh well, it's what keeps this town running and thriving. Uh and the hund of farm families and the surrounding areas. This is uh this is just the only way of life we really know. We're trying to transition to where we're able to be sustainable. And when I mean sustainable, I don't necessarily mean it from an environmental sustainability. I mean from a longevity and a business sustainability. When you come to one of our uh locations during harvest, you'll see these long lines of trunks. And there's a reason. And that's because the farmers and members, they want to do business with producers rice mill. producers has over 2,000 farmer members, families that produce rice, farm, own all the investments, and they bring their rice to producers and share in the proceeds. I'm — a true southern girl and I'm proud of it. You know, I've been born and raised in Starden. When I ran, that was my main thing is we've got to move forward and be more productive and that's what we're trying to do. producers came to me. Um, they were wanting to put a solar plant in. That's only a win-win for us because we took a piece of land that wasn't generating that much property tax. We were able to generate property tax which we don't really get that much from, but the school district does. Plus, it also helps producers because, as you know, with rice industry this year, we're kind of going through a hard time. They're able to generate enough electricity out there to power their plant. Well, that only brings back more revenue that can be used for salaries and other upgrades for that facility out there. So, it was just it's just the right thing to do at the time for the city. — There's people from everywhere that works here. Some people drive at least an hour to get to work sometimes. Here at Producers Rice Meal, we pack long grain, medium grain, and brown rice. My job is very important to me. I come in an hour early pretty much every day and do things that will make my day a lot easier. Quite frankly, the economic study showed that the co-op would save over a hundred million dollar in electrical savings uh in a little over 30 years of time. So, that excited a lot of the uh the farmers. As we looked at our supply chains and we looked at what vendors were available, it was crucial to our board of directors as representatives of all these farm families that we sourced domestic US produced panels and other components. For us to be in business, not only does it take great employees, but we've got to be a lowcost producer. And uh we really believe that with the investment in solar and renewable energy, we've hedged our electricity cost for the next 30 35 years. And I think that's going to be a key for us in continuing to be a lowcost producer in order to be competitive with not only our competitors here in the United States, but also competitors around the world.