This year Arkansas is expected to once again lead the nation in rice production, but 30 years ago the outlook was totally different.

Recent donations to the Arkansas State University Archives and Special Collections document how some Lawrence County farmers played key roles in changing the federal agricultural programs, a move that made Arkansas’ leadership position possible.

When they began their quest, the right to grow rice rested only with those who held federally regulated “allotments.” Through their grassroots citizens’ effort, rice production was opened to everyone.

Lawrence Countians who donated their papers to the Arkansas State University Archives and Special Collections review some of the items with Dr. Brady Banta (right), ASU Archivist.  Larry and Loretta Corbett (from left) of Alicia, Darrell Smith of Sedgwick and Martha Baker of Alicia donated the documents from their successful 1970s drive to change federal law and open rice production to everyone.

The change did not come easily, and the results were dramatic. “It has definitely impacted the entire state, especially the eastern and southern parts, and the Delta,” commented Larry Corbett of Alicia, one of those who donated papers. The full extent of the beneficial economic impact on eastern Arkansas can never be measured.

The ASU Archives preserves documents and other materials that capture the heritage of the Northeast Arkansas region, according to Dr. Brady Banta, archivist.

Collections donated to the Archives from Corbett and his wife Loretta, Martha Baker of Alicia, and Darrell Smith of Sedgwick will document how several Northeast Arkansas farmers banded together for a common purpose, Banta explained.

By donating their papers, they have helped preserve an important Arkansas story that impacts many, many lives.

“Another good part about having this in the Archives is that we get a collection like this, we’ll get another collection, then we’ll get another collection,” Banta explained. “The whole story isn’t all in one. When we get enough of these collections, the whole story comes together.”

The Corbett, Baker and Smith documents chronicle the lobby effort through copies of position papers, transcripts of testimony before Congressional committees, letters to and from the Congressional delegation and federal officials and other items.

Federal agricultural legislation had for many years, into the 1970s, provided that rice could be grown only by those holding an “allotment” for a specified acreage. Most of the allotments were held by producers in Texas, Louisiana and California.

“It was just supply and demand . . . the fewer bushels grown, the higher the price was. And they didn’t want it turned loose,” recalled Stan Jones of Clover Bend. “The farm deal had been passed years before and that’s just the way it was . . . you were either in, or you were out.”

Interest in changing the laws began to intensify as farmers saw that rice was much more profitable than the traditional crops of cotton and soybeans.

As Darrell Smith recalls, he was recruited to the movement by R. W. Collins of Delaplaine. Then Smith sought help from his neighbor, Russell Scott of Sedgwick, and they went to work.

In 1973, Scott, Smith and Corbett went to a farmers’ meeting Scott had learned about in Little Rock, where Secretary of Agriculture Earl Butz was speaking. Even though they had not been invited and soon were escorted out, they managed to catch Butz’s attention during a brief hallway exchange.

That moment was one of the major turning points in what turned out to be long and expensive effort. Corbett and Noel Baker (Martha Baker’s late husband) eventually logged 16 trips to Washington, D.C., as the “unofficial” leaders of the grassroots lobbying effort.

“On every trip we went on, there was someone besides Noel and I,” Corbett recalled. “Sometimes maybe one or two other people, sometimes 10 or 12 were with us. Everybody was equally important, from the guys who were down here helping collect money to help us pay our air fare, to the ones who actually went up there. It was a group effort.”

Through a series of meetings and exchanges of ideas, the group drafted a bill for changing the law. After further revisions and polishing, they took their bill to Washington and sought support.

“We figured we would make maybe a couple of trips up there, when the House or the Senate was talking about rice,” Corbett recalled, but that was a bit optimistic. “We testified before the USDA, the Senate and House Agri Committees, and we watched the [newspapers]. Any time that there was anything being discussed about rice, we tried to be there.”

Their scrapbooks donated to the ASU Archives includes documentation and photos of several Lawrence County farmers who campaigned for the legislative change, including Wendell Jones, Paul Downum, Tom Sloan, Joe Belk, Stanley Corbett and Herbert Corbett.

While in D.C., Corbett was among those who engaged the political opposition to change.

“They asked us to come over one night and we did…we went over and talked with them… they tried everything they could to encourage us to be quiet and go home and quit (pursuing new legislation). We told them we could not…because there was too many of us and we needed it. And we kept going.”

At the end of the long effort, after turning opposition into supporters, they were rewarded by witnessing the moment for which they had long worked.

“We got to see it when [Congress] passed it, and that was kind of exciting,” Corbett said.

Martha Baker recalled that her husband, Noel Baker, took a great deal of pride in the farmers’ successful lobbying efforts.

“When he would drive up and down the roads, he would see all the wells that had been put down and the ground that had been leveled, and the rice fields as far as you could see,” she explained. “We were going down the road one day and he said ‘there’s no way that anybody could take this away from me…I can see what happened . . . I can see the change . . . I know I made some people mad at different times, but you can’t take this away.’ ”

Baker started raising rice when he had the opportunity to farm a nearby landowner’s 15-acre allotment. Even after paying the standard rent of one-fourth the crop, he quickly saw how much more profitable raising rice could be, Mrs. Baker added.

Harold Baker, his brother, recalled that 30 years ago rice was selling for about $10 per bushel, considerably more than now, without adjustment for inflation.

Darrell Smith remembered, as he added his papers to Corbett’s and Baker’s, how the movement gained steam in Lawrence County.

Secretary Butz’s commitment at the 1973 meeting ended with his promise and a request that Scott to re-check his figures from the local federal agency. Butz asked Scott to send the numbers to him, personally.

“ ‘I’ll know where it’s from and I’ll do what I can do.’ ” Smith recalled Butz’s promise. “From that day it started. We had meetings all over everywhere. And, everybody banded together. Mr. Scott or Mr. Collins or Larry or Noel or I couldn’t have done it by ourselves…everybody pitched in.”

The other farmers remembered Scott for his very passionate approach to changing the law, even though he already held a small rice allotment at the time. His daughter, Robyn Scott Doyle of Sedgwick, vividly recalls her father’s efforts.

“He wanted everybody to have an opportunity to farm what they wanted to farm, especially young farmers,” she said, referring to his phone calls, trips and other efforts. “He really had farming in his blood and he believed in working and he believed in the importance of agriculture.”

A young Stan Jones and his father, the late Wendell Jones, were among those who made some of the Washington trips because they could anticipate a much better future economically with rice than solely with soybeans.

Jones, who now operates one of the largest rice farms in the county, explained that the change in the allotment policy did not just make farming better; it preserved a livelihood for many.

“If it wasn’t for this (lifting of allotments), I would not be in farming,” said Stan Jones, explaining that he is just one of many similarly situated. “So many people would not be in farming today if rice had not been turned loose.”

The U.S. Department of Agriculture’s statistics are what Jones says best illustrate the significance of rice to the Arkansas economy. There are six states that produce most U.S. rice – Arkansas, California, Louisiana, Mississippi, Missouri and Texas – but Arkansas is the leading state, producing nearly as many bushels, 213 million in 2003, as the other five states combined.

The economic impact for counties like Lawrence County should not be underestimated, Corbett emphasized, both in farming and related industries.

After rice allotments were lifted and the crop was opened to everyone, “we started putting down the wells to grow the rice . . . then we started leveling ground, and that helped the land-leveling business…we started buying more grain bins…more irrigation equipment….and trucks,” he continued. “After irrigating the ground for rice, then you rotate it over to soybeans or other crops, so it made an impact on a lot of different aspects, not just farming."

When Corbett’s wife Loretta first saw the design on the newly minted Arkansas quarter, she said, it stirred many memories, “of what had happened to make that sheaf of rice so important in the State of Arkansas -- the work that these men did unselfishly. All they wanted was the right to grow rice, the right to provide for their families, and a future if their children wanted to come into it.”

She added that donating the papers to the ASU Archives will help recognize all the farmers’ hard work and contributions that have benefited the state’s economy and state pride.

“We’re number one in something! That number one is in the production of rice!” she said. “These men wanted the same opportunity for everyone . . . and with tenacity and something they were already acquainted with – hard work – they accomplished it.”