Texas rice production

David French was growing in such quantity by 1863 that he is considered to be the first to operate a major rice farm in Beaumont, Texas.

Pumps and irrigation systems provided further means of expanded production as farmers cultivated rice by using water from the Colorado River, four decades before the chain of Texas Highland Lakes were created beginning in 1938.

[2] Seito Saibara, accompanied by his family and thirty Japanese colonists, oversaw the rice production which originated in Harris County at Webster.

Their influence was such that the Saibara family was eventually credited with establishing the rice industry on the Texas Gulf Coast.

This resulted in the New Deal program, the Agricultural Adjustment Act which established price and production controls which still influence the rice industry today.