Rice Pesticides Program
California rice has been a leader in improving water quality for the last 20 years by innovatively working with programs that decrease concentrations of select pesticides in the surface water of the rice-growing regions. With approximately 500,000 acres of rice grown annually north of Sacramento, most emphasis has been on the Sacramento River Basin. The Department of Pesticide Regulation managed the Rice Pesticides Program with the rice industry contributing half the expenses for sampling and monitoring until 2003, when the California Rice Commission assumed full program responsibility for monitoring, sampling, analysis, reporting and recommendations.
