Episode 13: Harvesting Rice with Kim Gallagher

Before your sushi roll or rice bowl, there's a team effort to grow, harvest, mill and ship the fundamental ingredient – California rice. Fall is a busy time in the Sacramento Valley, with GPS-guided harvesters bringing in more than four billion pounds of grain from a half-million acres of rice fields. In Colusa County, America's largest rice-growing area, Kim Gallagher continues the family tradition of her father and grandfather. Rice quality and production continue to rise, thanks to hard work, forethought and amazing advancements in technology. Rice varieties have improved. Through conventional breeding advancements, California rice varieties are semi-dwarf, meaning they are shorter and produce more grain than what was planted in past generations. Also, newer varieties can be harvested earlier in the season, helping avoid pitfalls of rain during harvest. Global Positioning System, or GPS technology, has dramatically changed planting, fieldwork and harvest. "I'm having a little bit of fun with that this year," Kim said. "We have the technology where I'm actually taking these yields, putting them on my laptop, looking to see where the yields are as the harvester is going through and counting how many grains are going through that harvester. It can tell me where my weak spots are in the field and where my strong spots are - where I have high yields. Then I can go back the next year and make decisions based on that yield, what I want to do with fertilizer and where the weeds were. There's so much information now available." Kim said she shoots for 10,000 pounds of rice produced per acre, which reflects the amazing growth in productivity in California rice farming during the last 20 to 30 years. Kim and her family run the Erdman Warehouse, which dries and stores more than 30-million pounds of rice each season. Rice is stored with its protective hull in place, which helps maintain its quality and shelf life before milling.  The former Biology Teacher is not only enjoying farming, but marvels at the diverse ecosystem found in rice fields. "That's probably the whole piece of the puzzle that makes this job so satisfying," she remarked. "There's an enormous amount–millions of waterfowl that come in – and they eat first of all the rice and then the bugs. They just love living in our rice fields during the winter. Even after the waterfowl leave, we have all of these shorebirds. This is such an incredible crop. How many things can we feed? There are just so many different wildlife species that make their home out here. All through the year, you can find something amazing out here."