CROSS COUNTY — Two of Riceland’s grain dryers in Cross County are among those the company will temporarily close due to a reduction in rice acreage this year.
The dryers affected are in Fair Oaks and Parkin. In total, nine will be closed. The others are located in Tuckerman, Knoble, Des Arc, Griffithville, Lonoke, Dumas, and in Dudley in the Missouri Bootheel.
In a statement, Riceland said the locations will remain active storage locations due to a large carryover of leftover crop that will need to be stored and transported to mill points in the new marketing year.
Long-grain rice acreage in Arkansas is expected to drop 24% to around 800,000 acres this year. It’s the lowest acreage of rice in nearly 50 years.
