January 27, 2006
Vermilion Parish Farmers Worry About Effects of Riviana Closing
It's a move that'll affect every business owner parishwide.
That move, as Eyewitness News first reported Thursday, is Riviana Foods leaving Vermilion Parish.
Riviana Foods leaving the parish comes just months after the company laid off nearly 100 workers from its packaging plant.
Failure to sell the facilities could put farmers out of a job and deliver a blow to the Vermilion Parish economy.
Vermilion Parish is home to about 250 farmers. Norman Duhon is one. As if recovering from a hurricane wasn't enough, in light of Riviana Foods' decision to sell, farmers now face an even bigger predicament: Who will buy their rice and how far they'll have to travel to sell it.
Duhon says if the mill closes, other mills out of Vermilion Parish will have to take up the slack and that's going to affect rice growers. He says he'll have to look around for someone to sell to. He says he has old equipment he uses just to travel five to ten miles, and now he'll be traveling 40 miles with old trucks.
Vermilion Parish police jury secretary/treasurer Clay Menard, who's a farmer himself, knows first-hand.
Menard says farmers won't plant if there is not outlet.
Because Vermilion Parish is agriculturally driven, those effects trickle down to business owners and its residents.
Menard says it will affect seed companies and fertilizer companies, repair shops and everything in the parish. He says the parish gets taxes to repair roads and bridges and the schools get tax money to operate. He says any decline in taxes will hurt the parish's economy.
The city of Abbeville has acquired a grant from the state Office of Economic Development to repair railroad tracks damaged by Hurricane Rita. Officials are hoping to use the funds and a reduced utility fee as marketing tools to attract potential buyers. The mill will remain open through the 2006 season, pending a sale.
Rice growers are already having a hard time making ends meet.
Farmers are getting $10 for a barrel of rice, the same amount their fathers got in the 1960s.
Only when their parents were farming, a gallon of diesel costs them 15 cents a gallon and today, the fuel is up to $2.00 a gallon.
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