Here’s the latest in the Green Jobs Now Series from WorkingNation focused on Arkansas:
Chris Isbell of Isbell Farms is a prime example of a lifelong learner. “If I had to farm like everybody else, I wouldn’t want to be a farmer because I like to experiment. I like to look at new things. I like to test the envelope on just about everything. That’s just my personality. And I was allowed to do that here,” says Isbell who co-owns the 3,000-acre farm with his wife Judy in England, Arkansas.
Isbell is from a lineage of at least five generations of farmers, with his father being the first to grow rice. Rice, not cotton. It may surprise you to learn that more than 47% of all the rice grown in the U.S. is from Arkansas, which had a record harvest last year.
More than 30 years ago, Isbell began attending the gatherings of the Rice Technical Working Group. “Academics from all of the rice-growing states meet every two years. They share their experiments and the papers they’ve written. It’s basically peer review.”
Over time, Isbell developed close relationships with a number of the conference attendees. “Through the years, we kept those friendships up and it’s helped out many times in our decisions about where to go and what to do next on the farm.” Read the full article on WorkingNation.