Rice Is ‘Built Ford Tough’

When you buy a new pickup truck, there’s now a chance that it is just one of the latest items to be made, at least partially, using sustainable materials.

That’s not to say that a farmer’s new 2014 Ford F-150 is going to be the greenest vehicle on the market, but the Dearborn, Mich.-based company is touting the use of rice hulls in the truck’s latest model year.

According to the company, rice hulls – a rice byproduct – sourced from Arkansas farms are being used by RheTech, a Whitmore Lake, Mich.-based automotive supplier to reinforce plastic used in the truck’s electrical harnesses.

David Preston, director of business development for RheTech, said his company had been working with Ford to develop a use for rice hulls over multiple years.

“We developed this resin specifically for Ford over the last three years, working with the automaker closely, including in all phases of material qualification,” he said, explaining that the rice hulls would replace a talc-based reinforcement in a polypropylene composite made by RheTech.

Jarrod Hardke, a rice extension agronomist with the University of Arkansas Division of Agriculture Cooperative Extension Service in Stuttgart, said what Ford and RheTech had done with rice hulls was unique.

“What they’re referring to is the hull, or the husk – the outer layer of the rice. It’s a byproduct of the milled process that produced the white rice that you have on your shelf,” he said. “What rice mills are doing is finding additional uses for what has traditionally been a byproduct that doesn’t have a high value. Hulls are pretty typically discarded.”

According to Greg Yielding, executive director of the Arkansas Rice Grower’s Association, rice hulls – which have traditionally only been used as bedding in poultry farming facilities – have sold for as little as $10 per ton in places like Texas and Louisiana, adding that the price in the Jonesboro area is averaging around $25 per ton as of Sept. 30.

Compare that to the cost of another rice byproduct, bran (also known as miller’s bran), which Yielding said was recently priced at $180 per ton, and it becomes clear how little of an impact the sale of rice hulls could have.

But Yielding said as demand for the once discarded hulls increases, so too will the price.

“With Ford buying them, it may affect the price a little bit, but how much will it be compared to buying it for the chicken houses? … The demand will increase and the cost will increase and it will be just between them and animal bedding people who generally don’t want to pay that much for it.”

As for who profits from the sale of rice hulls as they are used in more and more products, Yielding said it won’t be the average rice farmer in the Delta.

“The farmers are planting for the food value. Could there be some sort of indirect deal? If it’s a co-op, yes. Theoretically. But it will never be enough money to get them (the farmer) paid any more,” he said. “What’s really going to pay the money is a more sustainable foreign market or even a domestic market for the rice itself.”

Regarding the overall economic impact, Hardke said it would be difficult to narrow the exact impact of rice hulls being used in sustainable manufacturing, even in coming years with expected increases in the price per ton. But he said anything that deals with rice is likely to have an impact on the state’s economy.

“One in six jobs is related to rice in the state of Arkansas,” Hardke said.

As for what the future looks like for the rice byproduct now that it is being used to reinforce plastic used in electrical harnesses, Hardke said it would be hard to tell.

“Whether we dive into new alternative uses, I can’t say for sure at this time. I’m always sitting down, looking at current and future research projects. That is something that needs to be considered. But we have to weigh how does that fit with our stakeholders and what is the best use of our time and resources? But that is something to be considered – anything that will increase the value of a commodity that (farmers) are producing,” he said.

“Like with some of our other crops, like soybeans, corn and cotton, I think rice, if any additional uses are found, it will be gradual and it will primarily be tied to byproducts simply because it’s such a staple food product versus soybeans, which is primarily used for its oil. Even corn is not a worldwide staple food like rice and wheat. I don’t see rice changing a lot, but if there are shifts, I think it will be finding uses for byproducts,” Hardke said.