My name is Jason Smith, owner and current president of Lone Pine Enterprises L.L.L.P. Lone Pine was officially started in 1972 by the founder, previous owner, and president of Lone Pine Enterprises, Mr. Carl Garrich was my, great uncle, and mentor. Carl was one of the pioneers in today’s organic industry. Lone Pine was conceived when a man from Boston. and a man from Hereford, Texas got in touch with Carl Garrich’s account; regarding the beginnings of Lone Pine.
“The reason they got in touch with me was because of Gloria Swanson. the movie actress. And with word of mouth all the way. Gloria Swanson was a health food advocate, and a friend of mine had a cousin in Los Angeles who was directing a picture, and she knew him and she said, “They grow rice in Arkansas, surely there’s someone there that might want to grow rice for us.” so he told his cousin, here in Little Rock, who was a good friend of mine. My friend then told me, about this idea. Then we got in touch with the people from Boston and the people from Hereford, Texas who were starting out in the health food business. They came, to Carlisle and visited with me, and we came to an agreement. I started growing organic rice, for these buyers, from then and I’ve been in the organic crop business from this point until now.
I grew up farming rice with my father, and then on my own, not using the chemicals, and/or chemical compounds. Being all these buyers were wanting was rice farming the way it was performed, when I started off farming, I felt confident that I could do this because I was in the industry long enough that we grew all rice this way to begin with…
I learned my rice farming skills from my dad, when he was growing rice, before I got into the industry. It was a matter of converting back, to growing the way rice the way it was grown back in the 1920’s. Not knowing what we could produce, as far as volume, is what was most concerning to me. Given this concern, we came to an agreement where both sides felt was fair and both sides agreed would have been profitable to me, and profitable to them; if I made a good crop. The first year I made an awful good crop. The company in Boston took everything, grown that year, that I grew organically. It went under the brand name of Erewhon Trading Company.
Then after that first year, Paul Hawken’s came over to Carlisle AR. Three, or four, times to watch, these organic rice fields, to see how the fields grew. Fortunately, these next year’s we came up with a very good crop, as well. Both of us made out pretty good, regarding the organic rice grown, harvested and sold to Erewhon Trading Company’s consumers.
Paul Hawken’s said, by the end of the second good crop of organic rice, that it would probably be better if I would “Name my own brand and then distribute the organic rice to all the distributors around.” Having a brand name, for this the organic rice grown, to sell the Erewhon Trading Company distributors rather than he taking each year’s organic rice crop, then shipping it to the various places, would cut the price down. Doing this would especially cut freight costs. During this timeframe I didn’t know what to name, my new business. As I was considering a business name, we were around a big pine tree, located in my front yard, and I just thought” why not name it Lone Pine;
And it has gone over just perfect; it’s short, good. and been wonderful.
Having rice farmed with his farther, from the time he was a small boy, he knew that originally that is how everyone farmed rice on the Arkansas prairie. He remembered that in the 1920’s and 1930’s a farmer would take the manure, from the horse stables and cattle barns, which collected over the winter months. Then in the spring these prairie farmers would spread this manure on their rice fields and then work this manure into the soil as a fertilizer for their soon to be planted rice crop. Carl knew that the thick clay hardpan, approximately 6 to 8 inches under the soil, located on much of Arkansas’s prairies, combined with manure collected from the livestock over the winter months produced a viable rice crop, Mother Nature willing.
In 1971 Carl struck a deal with Paul Hawken to grow 80 acres of short grain rice as he and his forefather, as well as most farmers, routinely did decades earlier. Now this almost lost art was to be coined “organically grown”. Erewhon Trading Company guaranteed Carl first crop up to 80 bushels an acre as insurance for any losses that could occur. Carl first crop yielded 130 bushels per acre. The first crop was a success and the next step was to find a rice miller. After some looking in the local area Carl found Cormier Rice Mill in DeWitt, AR. Cormier Rice Mill agreed to mill the organically grown rice for Carl. The following year, in 1972 after the second successful organic rice crop produced and sold to Erewhon Trading Company, Paul again met with Carl and this time suggested that he give a name to this new organic farm. Once Paul Hawken suggested this idea to Carl paused looked around his farmland, house and barn. He saw a single pine tree growing in between his house and cattle barn that had been there for a few years now. He answered to Paul Hawken “I believe I will call my organic farm Lone Pine”. Unfortunately, that “Lone Pine” tree finally died around the same time my great uncle passed away. This occurred from being struck by lightning many times over the years. The old pine tree has weathered many tornados, and storms, over the decades. Roughly 20 years ago, a new pine tree has sprouted from the seed of the original “Lone Pine’s” pine cones. This new generation of Lone Pine still stand today, and pleases all of us very much.
Jason Smith
Owner Lone Pine Enterprises L.L.L.P.