What is it about the geography of this area that makes it a good place to grow rice?
I think it’s a combination of the water availability. We have surface water that’s available; we have good groundwater that’s available. We have the temperate climate. We have the rainfall. We have the—we don’t need the humidity but we have that. Do you know how long rice has been farmed in Louisiana and how it got here? I think rice was here—it came into the US in the 1700s or something, and I think my—my relatives came here in the mid-1860s, and I think at that time they brought a lot of the rice—brought the rice industry from just small pieces, you know in individuals’ yards or whatever, or small areas, into a commercial entity, you know. So it’s probably 1860s to 1900s is the most—when most of the expansion took place. So your family was integral in doing that? Yes. We—well it—the German settlement in Roberts Cove is where many of the Germans—when they came into the US they settled in the Roberts Cove area. And at that point, that’s when they—they used the type soil they had there
