“I said, ‘That’s the one I’m looking for, the wetland is good for the rice,’” Badjie said, flashing an easy smile. “Dawn said, ‘No, you can’t grow rice here. Are you crazy?’”
Few farmers attempt to grow a warmth-loving crop like rice in the Northeast’s short growing season, but Badjie and Hoyte are experimenting with rice-growing methods to suit New York’s climate on their Ever-Growing Family Farm. It’s the only commercial rice farm in New York state, and one of a handful of small rice farms in the entire Northeast.
Badjie is guided by generations of farming experience. Before moving to the United States in 2005, he had spent his whole life in rice fields in the Gambia, West Africa. He belongs to the Jola people, from the Gambia, Senegal and Guinea Bissau, who have been farming rice for 1,000 years. Now Badjie, Hoyte and Moustapha Diedhou, a Jola farmer from Senegal, are successfully building their rice farm, and a Cornell agronomist is helping them optimize their crop.
The collaboration may improve farmers’ commercial success, provide a roadmap for future rice growers, and create a local market for fresh rice – which cooks and tastes different from aged rice – as a boutique, specialty grain. And rice grown in the Northeast may provide a valuable alternative for organic farmers looking to diversify their crops in the face of climate change, as trends of warmer temperatures and increased precipitation continue in the Northeast. Data from 1957 to 2010 from the Northeast Regional Climate Center for Rosendale, New York (the best data near Ulster Park), reveals a consistent trend of increased annual rainfall; the center reported an average of 9.1 more inches of rain in 2010 than in 1957.