From the Fields - Chris Capaul

By Chris Capaul, Sutter County bean and rice farmer

I started harvesting baby limas last week. They look a lot better than last year. I have some undersized beans, but other than that, they look good. I had a lot of undersized beans last year, too, but that was due to the drought. Yields were really down last year. I’m optimistic I’m going to have one of my better crops this year.

We sold some beans early. It’s very quiet now. We’ll have to wait and see how many beans come in. Last year, there weren’t very many—probably the lowest crop in years. The market has been so slow. It never recovered from COVID. Japan shut down more than most countries. Baby limas are (used as) a confectionary product there to make pastries for parties and events. When the country shut down, they quit buying. They bought up last year’s stuff, and they made a couple of contracts this year, but they haven’t jumped in full force because the price is up. The price came up because there were so few (beans). I don’t think you could sell them for that price today. I think Japan is waiting to see what comes in.

We’re getting ready to start harvesting rice. I have one field of regular medium-grain Calrose. The rest is seed rice, and it’s all contracted. Last year I had 74 acres of rice. I left a couple fields out, and I grew a lot more beans because I had a little bit of water to irrigate the beans. But I didn’t have any for rice. This year I went back to growing mostly rice and half the amount of beans. I planted the rice the early part of May, and it’s not ready. We’re worried about it. It needs a good month or more of good weather to get everybody harvested. In another week, I think there will be a lot of harvesters in the fields.