Through partnerships with CPG companies, Riceland farmer-members receive payment for environmental assets generated through sustainable rice production
STUTTGART, Ark. (June 30, 2025): Riceland Foods distributed over $4 million to its farmers enrolled in the 2024 Riceland Carbon Ready™ Program. Since launched in 2022, the program has paid out close to $8.5 million to cooperative farmer members enrolled. With the assistance of Arva Intelligence, the program tracked key data points, such as tillage method, irrigation, and nutrient management, to showcase how sustainable production practices impact sustainable metrics.
Riceland President and Chief Executive Officer Kevin McGilton expressed support for the program’s third year serving cooperative members.
“As input costs and other expenses continue to rise, I am grateful the Riceland Carbon Ready™ Program can provide additional financial support for our farmer-members,” McGilton said. “Through this program, cooperative members have received close to $8.5 million since the program began in 2022. As a cooperative, it is our duty to create and maintain programs that support our farmer-members, and Carbon Ready™ has become a member benefit, driving value from our farmers’ fields to our customers’ supply chain.”
Here are the major takeaways from the 2024 Riceland Carbon Ready™ Program.
Over 136,000 tons of CO2 emissions reductions
- 39.3 billion gallons of water saved through irrigation management practices like Alternate Wetting and Drying (AWD), Multi-inlet Rice Irrigation (MIRI), furrow irrigated rice and zero grade precision leveling
- 71,200 acres of rice fields utilized as waterfowl habitat in the off-season
Riceland Vice President of Government Affairs and Sustainability Adam Shea said the program continues to evolve to serve the needs of cooperative members.
“When we set out to create this program, we always wanted it to grow to support our members’ sustainable production practices and lean into our customers’ sustainability goals to support their supply chains,” Shea said. “As we look forward, we are striving to continue our current successes and find ways to grow the program to create more avenues for our farmer-members to be rewarded for sustainable agriculture practices, not just in rice, but other commodities, too.”
Funding for the 2024 Riceland Carbon Ready™ Program was provided from six companies in the consumer-packaged goods space who purchase rice from the cooperative. The investment in the Riceland Carbon Ready™ Program allows our partners to make Scope 3 GHG emission reductions claims as part of their overall sustainability goals.
The Riceland Carbon Ready™ Program launched in 2022 with Arva Intelligence as Riceland’s data and analytics partner. The Arva Intelligence team has prioritized Riceland’s farmer-members the ability to own their own data.
In 2020, the cooperative and its farmer-members set an ambitious goal to reduce water usage in rice production by 250 billion gallons by 2025. In the 2024 Riceland Carbon Ready™ Sustainability Report, the cooperative shared this goal was complete. From 2019 through 2024, there was a 74 percent increase in our farmer-members adoption of more sustainable irrigation practices on surveyed acres.
For more information on the Riceland Carbon Ready™ Program, please contact Ashten Adamson at
abadamson@riceland.com.
About Riceland Foods, Inc
Riceland Foods is the world's largest miller and marketer of rice serving 5,500 farmer members in Arkansas and Missouri. As a farmer-owned cooperative, Riceland stores, transports, processes and markets more than 2.5 million metric tons of grain each year, and its products are sold across the United States and around 25 countries. It’s also one of the Mid-South's major soybean processors. Riceland products include white, brown and parboiled rice, rice bran oil, soybean meal and oil and feed ingredients. Learn more at: Riceland.com.
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