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"Leave the land better than you found it."
Back in ‘37, Grandpa Albert and Grandma Frances traded Nebraska and the Dust Bowl for Northern California and irrigation (a real game-changer). Their motto? “Leave the land better than you found it.” We’re still following in their footsteps.
Great rice (and a happy planet) don’t happen by accident:
We’ve never been afraid to grow our own way. In the 1940s, other farmers laughed at Grandpa Albert for plowing rice straw into the soil and growing cover crops instead of just lighting his fields on fire (really). But Grandpa Albert wanted to build soil health and protect air quality. Turns out, he was about 50 years ahead of the curve!
Call us the OGs of organic. In 1969, the second-gen Lundbergs planted their first crop of organic rice. By ’73, Homer Lundberg and 53 other local farmers were launching California Certified Organic Farmers (CCOF)—setting the standard for organic long before it was cool (or even federally recognized). Trendsetters? Maybe just a little.
California rice fields are for the birds—literally! Each winter, we flood some of our fields to replicate our region’s natural wetlands. We also grow cover crops, which provide nesting habitat for ducks. So, each spring, before the tractors start rolling, we rescue the eggs by hand. So far, we’ve saved an estimated 30K of the fuzzy little quackers!
Rice-Obsessed Since 1937
(That’s almost 100 years!)
Grandpa Albert and Grandma Frances left Nebraska in the wake of the Dust Bowl with their four young sons (Eldon, Wendell, Harlan, and Homer), a flatbed Chevy truck, a Farmall tractor, and a new philosophy: “Leave the land better than you found it.”
They say the best fertilizer is the farmer’s shadow–and there it is! Everybody told Grandpa Albert he was gonna go broke and his ground was no good. But Albert told his sons, “You know what? This is really good ground, but it’s never been farmed right. It needs a good farmer."
In 1969, a company called Chico-San asked about 150 rice farmers to grow organic. Only one said yes—the Lundberg brothers. Inspired by their dad’s advice to “leave the land better,” they planted 76 acres of organic short grain rice. The yield was small, but the idea? Huge. Organic was on.
Long before “organic” was cool, Homer Lundberg and 53 other rebel farmers banded together to start California Certified Organic Farmers (CCOF), the first certifying body of its kind about three decades before the National Organic Program! Ahead of our time? Certifiably.
Harlan Lundberg went to a trade show in Vegas and gambled on... a rice cake machine! His brothers thought he’d lost it but he convinced them to set it up in a corner of their warehouse. They used about twice the rice per cake compared to those other guys. As Harlan said, “To add air is human. To add rice is divine!”
Each winter, we grow cover crops to feed the soil—and give ducks a place to nest. So, before we start our tractors to prep the fields for rice planting, we search the fields for nests and rescue any eggs by hand. Since 1993, we’ve saved about 30,000 of them! Some call it quacktivism—we just call it farming.
In 2004, we started offsetting 100% of our HQ power with wind energy—earning a shiny Green Power Leadership Award from the EPA award. Then we added solar panels, because why not? Now the sun powers nearly 20% of our energy. Clean, green, and kind of brag-worthy.
We believe everyone deserves to know what’s in their food. It’s that simple That’s why we helped start the Non-GMO Project, a rigorous certification for avoiding GMOs. Because, “I love eating GMOs,” said… well, not us.
When mixed recycling finally hit our tiny town of Richvale, CA, we went all in. These days, we're kind of recycling overachievers—sorting, collecting, and recycling about 99% of our waste. Extra? Maybe. Worth it? Definitely.
In 2019, we added more solar power at three key spots. Over 25 years, it’ll cut CO₂ by 24,660 tons—that’s like planting 1 million trees or driving 44 million fewer miles. Sunshine really pulls its weight!
We became the first U.S.-grown rice brand to launch Regenerative Organic Certified® rice. ROC™ goes above and beyond organic and non-GMO with high standards for soil health, animal welfare, and social fairness. But you can just call it delicious.
Rice this good doesn’t just happen. On the 50th anniversary of our rice breeding program, we committed to fast-tracking research and development of rice varieties that are hands-down delicious AND compatible with our climate-friendly regenerative organic farming practices.
Times change, but our purpose stays the same: We exist to grow the highest quality rice using organic and regenerative farming practices because the health of our bodies and our planet depend on it.
