SATTERFIELD ELECTED NEW PRESIDENT OF DELTA COUNCIL

Travis Satterfield

Travis Satterfield, Benoit, MS, a member of Producers' board of directors since 1997, has been elected President of the Mississippi Delta Council for the 2009/10 year. Satterfield has been a member of the Delta Council for many years and has previously served as Vice President, Chairman of the Delta Rice Committee, county membership chairman, former chairman of the Mississippi Farm Bureau Federation Rice Committee, a member of the Board of Directors of the Mississippi Rice Council and Chairman of Delta F.A.R.M., the highly successful environmental stewardship program which has gained national recognition for common-sense solutions to protect the environment of farming.

The Delta Council, composed of 18 counties, is a regional organization in Northwest Mississippi and includes cities such as Vicksburg, Greenville, Cleveland, and Robinsonville along the Mississippi River Delta.

The Delta Council was conceived in 1935 with the primary focus on flood protection, transportation development and agricultural policy and research. Those three issues remain among the fundamentals programs for the work of the Delta Council, but more current and diverse issues such as nursing shortages, adult literacy, technology in healthcare infrastructure, cultural and heritage tourism, workforce training, youth drug education, and environmental stewardship are among today's concerns.

Your board at work

Satterfield is one of several Producers board members who are actively involved in important agricultural and rice industry related positions and organizations:

Gary Sebree, Stuttgart: Chairman of the Arkansas Rice Producers Group, serves on the U. S. Rice Producers Group Board, Arkansas Rice Council Board, a member of the USA Rice's Governmental Affairs Committee, member of the World Price Committee and Political Action Group. He is also past chairman of the USA Rice Federation and currently serves on its board.

Jerry Hoskyn, Stuttgart: Chairman of the Arkansas Rice Research & Promotion Board and a member of the Arkansas and U. S. Rice Producers Group.

Jerry Brown, Wynne: Arkansas State Representative District 57, Vice-Chairman of the House Ag Committee, and Assistant Speaker Pro-Tem for the 1 st Congressional District.

Ray Vester, Stuttgart: Member of the Arkansas State Plant Board, Chairman of the USA Rice Environmental Regulatory Subcommittee, a member of the newly formed USA Rice Federation Sustainability Task Force and a past member of the Arkansas Dept. of Agriculture Board.

DELIVERY AGREEMENT REMINDER

The sign-up deadline for Producers' 2009 Rice Marketing Programs is June 30, 2009. More information on your options can be found in the Manager's Message below.

If you have any questions about your marketing options, please contact the Member Records Department, 870-674-2449 or 870-674-2478.

USA RICE FEDERATION ESTABLISHES SUSTAINABILITY TASK FORCE

The USA Rice Federation board, in response to a growing interest in the issue of agricultural sustainability, has established the USA Rice Federation Sustainability Task Force. The mission of the task force is to guide the development of a sustainability statement and program that can serve the rice industry's interests in farm policy and domestic and international rice marketing by:

• capitalizing on existing initiatives and programs that encourage sustainable agricultural production
• developing programs and incentives in future farm policy to reward sustainable production methods and the benefits they may provide to the environment, the public and the economy
• developing a comprehensive statement to show customers and others that rice is grown sustainably
• creating a pro-sustainability profile to differentiate U. S.-grown rice from rice produced in other countries

Jennifer James, a rice producer from Newport, Arkansas, will serve as chairman of the Sustainability Task Force. Members of the Task Force from Producers Rice Mill include Ray Vester and Keith Glover.

MANAGER'S MESSAGE

For the second consecutive year, excessive rain and flooding has delayed the spring planting season for all commodities. Once again, this year's Mid-South rice crop is estimated to be at least two or three weeks behind normal.

With the delays in this year's planting, we realize all of our members are extremely busy. However, I want to remind our members our 2009 sign-up deadline of June 30, 2009, is quickly approaching.

In this Manager's Message I want to talk about our two kinds of marketing programs at Producers and discuss in further detail the seasonal pool option within the long grain pricing pool.

Regular Seasonal Pool (Long and Medium Grain): The seasonal pool is the traditional way of marketing rice in farmer-owned cooperatives. The marketing strategy of the seasonal pool is to market or sell the members' rice in an orderly manner throughout the entire 2009-10 marketing year. This systematic approach of marketing rice will result in a good average of rice prices during the entire marketing year. Due to valued-added processing and premium sales assigned to this pool, Producers' seasonal pools have consistently exceeded the national average price paid to U. S. rice farmers as reported by USDA. In fact, Producers' long grain settlements have beaten the national average for the last 20 consecutive years. If you are looking for a marketing program with an outstanding track record of performance and don't want the responsibility of marketing your own crop, Producers' seasonal pool is the place for you.

Long Grain Pricing Pool: If you like to make your own marketing decisions or take advantage of pricing opportunities as they arise, Producers long grain pricing pool is the marketing program for you. This marketing program allows members to price their long grain rice based off the Chicago rough rice futures.

Beginning with the 1991 rice crop, Producers Rice Mill was the first rice marketing cooperative to offer its members a marketing program which allowed them to book their long grain rice off the Chicago rough rice futures. Since 1991 Producers has been committed to the long grain pricing program. Even during the volatile 2007-08 marketing year when Chicago rough rice futures exceeded $25 per cwt., Producers never altered or pulled its pricing pool. It is during these volatile price periods, when rice prices are at historically high levels, that we strongly believe it is more important than ever our members have a marketing program which allows them to take advantage of high prices when they occur. Because of our desire to meet all of our members marketing needs, we will remain committed to our long grain pricing pool.

Seasonal Pool Option Within the Pricing Pool: One of the more popular provisions of Producers' long grain pricing program is its seasonal pool option. With a seasonal pool option, members can start out in the long grain pricing pool, but may elect to move any unpriced rice in the pricing pool into a seasonal pool on or before November 30, 2009 . With this provision our members can start out in the pricing pool thus allowing them to take advantage of any price rallies all the way to the end of November before having to decide whether to stay in the pricing pool or elect to move their unpriced rice into a seasonal pool.

The last two crop years illustrate how this option can be very beneficial to all of our members. During the 2007-08 marketing year, when U. S. and world rice prices began to explode, many of our members chose to stay in the pricing pool and later priced their rice at extremely high prices. Then only one crop year later when a worldwide economic recession hit the commodity markets, many of our members elected to move their unsold 2008 rice into a less volatile seasonal pool which will once again return a rice price higher than the national average.

During the 18 years Producers' long grain pricing pool has been in existence, no one else in the U. S. rice industry has given their members the opportunity to either price their long grain rice based off the Chicago rough rice futures all the way to the end of November or elect to move their unsold rice into a seasonal pool that has consistently beat the national average price paid to U. S. rice farmers according to USDA.

At Producers we fully realize one of the main purposes of our existence is to provide our farmer/members with marketing programs that will best serve their rice marketing needs. For additional marketing information, please review our 2009-10 Rice Marketing Programs or call our Member Records Department or me at (870) 673-4444.

Again, please remember our sign-up deadline is June 30, 2009 .

Sincerely,