Legislative Council approves $5 million for rice research facility in Poinsett Co.

A Legislative Council on Friday approved $5 million for the University of Arkansas System Division of Agriculture to support its Northeast Rice Research and Extension Center in Poinsett County.

The U of A request also included $1 million in one-time state restricted reserved funds for its endowment for conservation research to help enhance the health of the state’s critical waterfowl populations and bottomland hardwood wetlands, according to a story in the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette.

Approval of the request comes several months after the UA System and a group of investors terminated a contract for the sale of 6,300 acres at the Pine Tree Research Station.

The Division of Agriculture had planned to use $5 million of the Pine Tree proceeds to match a grant from the producer funded Arkansas Rice Research and Promotion Board. More than $20 million has already been invested in the research project by the state’s rice farmers, according to the state newspaper.

In 2020, the UA Board of Trustees, the Division of Agriculture entered into a contract to sell about half of the Pine Tree Research Station near Colt to Lobo Farms in Fisher, which is in Poinsett County.

The sale price was $17.6 million, plus a $1 million endowment for a wetlands and waterfowl conservation program.

During the 2021 legislative session, lawmakers enacted two laws prohibiting the Pine Tree sale to Lobo.

In a news release issued after the money was approved, the UA Division of Agriculture said in a news release, “We want to thank Gov. Asa Hutchinson for making the request and Sen. Ron Caldwell for making the motion that the Performance Evaluation and Expenditure Review Committee adopt the request.”

Caldwell, R-Wynne, told the Democrat-Gazette, “I’m glad to see it happen. We have worked on that for several months, and I have always told everyone if we would all get on the same page that it should go through pretty easily.”

Caldwell said he supports transferring ownership of the

(Continued from Page 1) land from the U of A into a “neutral ownership position, and then leave that land open in perpetuity to the public. That’s still our goal,” he said.

“It could be either through the Game and Fish Foundation, someone else could come in and purchase it, the state could purchase it,” said Caldwell. “We purchase land for state parks. Why would we not purchase land for wildlife management areas?”