How a Texas Rice Grower Honors His Family with His Crop
⋅ BY CASSIDY NEMEC ⋅
Editor
Andrew Boettcher would have never imagined his life turning out the way it has years ago when he was running track at Stephen F. Austin University in East Texas and majoring in kinesiology.
Boettcher is now a fourth-generation farmer in the East Bernard, Texas, area since his family roots in farming began there around 1905. “A lot of this land we’re farming has been farmed since the early 1900s, so it’s been in the family for over 120 years.”
A Change of Plans
The Boettchers had stopped farming in 2005 due to water limitations and stuck with their cow-calf operation for a period.
“I grew up helping my dad riding in the combine, the farm kid kind of thing,” Boettcher said. “I never really had any interest in farming until, gosh, it was probably six years ago. It just hit me. All of a sudden, I was obsessed with it. All I wanted to do was farm rice. I didn’t care about any other crops; it was just rice.”
Boettcher said that he wanted to carry on a family legacy and start bringing rice back into the operation.
“I started with 30 acres of rice as my first crop,” he said. “That was a few years ago. Then I started getting into this organic rice and increasing acreage. Last year, I did 100 acres, and this year, I’m close to 300.”
He emphasized the struggle many in farming face. “It’s hard to start farming nowadays with all the equipment and costs. I’m just starting with older equipment and slowly building up while having a lot of breakdowns. That’s part of it. I can’t just go buy nice new equipment.”
What began as a way to continue his father and grandfather’s legacy quickly turned to his children.
In 2022, Andrew and his wife Kenna had a son named Eli who passed away 36 hours after birth. Eli had a birth defect and ended up in the 10% of cases where he wasn’t going to make it.
“As I was holding him in his last few moments, I decided that I would farm and use farming as a way to honor him and create kind of this heaven on earth. Because we all know rice is a beautiful crop. And so he has now become my true reason why I am doing it.”
One year after Eli and in an extremely rare occurrence, they had another son named Pierce who had the same birth defect.
“We’re automatically thinking, you know, we’re going to lose another son, but he made it,” Boettcher said. “In the midst of him making it, he got brain damage from premature birth. He has cerebral palsy, but he is the most fun, happy child. So, he’s another reason. My children have really become a big inspiration. Part of it all.”
The Operation
As it stands, the Boettcher operation includes roughly 300 acres of rice, a cow-calf operation, and Pradera Hunting Club — a hunting club that encompasses geese, ducks, sandhill crane, and dove.
He said rice and waterfowl go hand in hand. “Like with rice, I want to help restore a lot of what has disappeared here, waterfowl-wise. Texas used to be the goose hunting capital of the world. I don’t think it will ever be that again, but there are things we can do to help improve it. So, I think at some point it’s going to become just focused mainly on conservation and land restoration.”
Boettcher said this year’s crop will likely look like about 100 acres of organic rice and the remainder being conventional. Weed issues are minimal on his organic acres on the farm due to a combination of cow grazing and the hilly nature of the place.
“We are fortunate on the organic because we have the cows,” he said. “The cows really help suppress weeds in the winter. And I farm a lot of hilly stuff. So a lot of levees, which aren’t the most fun, but it is what it is. I’ve heard from a few local farmers that bench leveling a field that has been a cow pasture may cycle weeds and make the field unsuitable for organic farming. To stay safe, I keep my fields in their original state and run cattle on the fields after harvest for a year to supress weeds.”
While weeds don’t pose a large issue, hogs certainly do. “Hogs are an issue… They’re a problem. They are a pest. I think if you planted a 30-acre field of rice, they would destroy five acres of it,” Boettcher said.
They attempt to manage the population through thermal hog hunts. “We offer that as a hunt, and we do it as a management tool,” he said. “We did that last year, and it really helped. We killed probably 40 hogs across the 100 acres of rice, and they just kind of stopped going to it.”
Boettcher emphasized the community he has around him that help him learn and grow as a rice farmer. “Timothy and Daniel Gertson are local farmers in Lissie and have always been quick to help,” he said. “Timothy was part of Rice Leadership a few years back.”
“They’ve been so helpful to me. Whether I need to borrow equipment or need some custom stuff done, they’re there,” he said. “They will drop anything to help and help encourage that next group of farmers… they are some good people to have in your community.”
Short and Long-term Goals
Boettcher would like to see his rice operation grow in both acres and efficiency in the short-term future. “I think I would love to get the rice operation up to 1,000 or 1,500 acres. I think that’s just a good, solid number,” he said. “And we are in the plans and in discussions of putting in a couple different electric water wells. We think Lower Colorado River Authority water will come back when the droughts kind of lift up, but we’re just planning for more wells to help expand on acreage as if we can’t rely on them all the time.”
These water wells have the ability to put out about 1,200 to 1,800 gallons of water per minute and farm up to about 200 acres per well.
While he already attends many rice conferences and is working on an organic rice study on pelletized fertilizer with Dr. Sam Rustom this year, Boettcher also has a desire to be more involved in the rice industry. With the limitations on Texas water, he sees being part of a water board as something worthwhile, as well as the Texas Rice Council.
“I love Texas rice. I would rather farm here than anywhere else. Yes, even given its challenges. Whatever I can do to be a voice and a person that can help really make a difference here would be great. I really have no interest in just being a rice farmer. I want to accomplish more than that and be more involved.”
Challenges and Rewards
Outside of the farm, Boettcher is kept busy with his hunting club and church involvements. Additionally, he drives a lot with his son Pierce for his weekly appointments, works on financial reporting for a fractional CFO firm, and enjoys traveling with his family.
The biggest challenge on the Boettcher operation continues to revolve around water.
“I think every operation is different. Some people don’t want to put in a water well because it’s costly. But in our operation, it’s a little different because I don’t mind putting a well somewhere because, one, I’m going to use it for rice. Two, I’m going to use it to flood up for waterfowl. So the hunting club would help contribute and pay for the well,” he said. “The rice would of course help, so that way, it kind of alleviates the cost of it. We could get it paid for in five years and move on. So I would say water is a challenge because we don’t always have LCRA. But two, it’s just scaling. It’s scaling the business and starting kind of from nothing.”
Boettcher said that a new reservoir is going to go in just south of their operation around Lane City that is supposedly going to be able to hold 40,000 to 90,000 acre feet of water. “Its purpose is to help take some pressure off of the island lakes, so I think any sort of reservoirs or other things like that will be helpful.”
Aside from water, equipment costs also remain a hurdle to the young grower.
“We bought an older combine this year, and I love it,” Boettcher said. “It’s an old 1992 Case combine, and it cuts rice great. It’s old, but it gets the job done. And I love it and feel like even if I got another one, I’d still want to drive this one because it’s kind of special.
“I guess you could say I’m stretching my equipment this year with 300 acres. I’ll be pushing it. Stuff’s going to break down. It’s going to get tight. Say I went to 500 acres next year — now I’ve got to start putting some money into some better equipment. That’s just part of the scalability piece.”
On the flipside, Boettcher has no trouble remembering the biggest upside to waking up every day and continuing to farm.
“The biggest reward I get is I think it all comes back down to one: just getting to do this stuff with my dad and continue the family legacy,” he said. “It’s exciting — down to your soul, it’s exciting.
“I do it for my son Eli. Harvest for everybody can just be the most exciting time. I always say to honor somebody requires work. You can’t just say, ‘I want to honor him’ and not do anything. It requires work, and rice is a very labor-intensive crop. You don’t just plant and have a consultant tell you to spray. It requires work. And our fields, with all the levees, require even more work. At the end of the day, when we’re harvesting, I get to look back and know this is truly a labor of love and a way I can honor him.”
Understanding the deep commitment it takes to farm and following through on building his family’s legacy is non-negotiable for Boettcher.
“I remember I was holding my son’s hand and told him I was going to use my hands to do the work on this earth since he will not be here. ‘You’ll be in heaven, and I’ll use my hands to do the work for you.’ That’s all it is. It’s a labor of love in a way that I can honor him and continue this family legacy.”