Rice Family Farms

Rice Family Farms started out as Gilbert and Gladys Garden Vegetables( 1 acre) over 22 years ago by Gilbert Rice selling at the old Boise Farmers Market and to the Boise Consumer Coop. Lee Rice helped out some in the early days and formally joined the venture in 1993 with purchase of land on Meridian Road( Highway 69) 2 miles north of Kuna, Idaho. Both the home place, off of Locust Grove Rd.(Meridian) and Meridian Rd Place were farmed for 6 years. When Mom passed on Dad sold the home place and moved to the Meridian Rd place where Dad, Kim and I have lived, farmed and continued to work together since. The farm currently employs 3-8 dedicated hard working people full time from April though September planting, weeding, propagating, irrigating, picking, packing and marketing almost all of what we grow right here in Idaho. Farm Practices: The Farm has grown to an 18 acre highly diversified organic certified farm with over 200 species and sub-species of cover crops, pasture, vegetables and fruit grown annually. The farm uses no synthetic pesticides, herbicides or fertilizers and is managed and maintained using cover crop and pasture rotation coupled with continuous cultivar rotation within production fields, intensive hand and mechanical weed control with natural and NOP approved nutrient and pest control systems. For the past four years the farm has been certified for compliance with the National Organic Plan by OTCO, Oregon Tilth Certified Organic. Even if we were not certified we would still follow the same land, plant and good insect stewardship and soil nutrient, organic matter and conservation practices which are inherently a part of what we believe to be the best and most sustainable way to farm. Our certification, however, does involve some 200 to 300 hundred hours of record keeping, journal and input documentation and a 5 to 7 hour annual inspection of crops, records and documentation of production methods. We do this mainly to insure to our customers that the vegetables and fruit they buy from our farm are full of flavor and nutrients, produced in compliance with the National Organic Plan, and as natural as we possibly can.

Nampa, Idaho