Case Study: Family Farm in California Confronts Reports of Arsenic in Its Rice

THE CHALLENGE In mid-September, Consumer Reports published the results of independent lab tests that found inorganic arsenic, a carcinogen, in rice and many rice products. This came on the heels of a study by Dartmouth, released in February, that showed inorganic arsenic in brown rice syrup. Tim Schultz, 51, part of the third generation of Lundberg Farms’s family owners, said the company’s response was evolving. Because there is no federal safe standard for inorganic arsenic in food, Lundberg has struggled to make sense of the information for its customers, who greeted the news with panic.

THE BACKGROUND The farm was founded by Albert Lundberg, a Nebraska wheat and corn farmer who came to California in 1937 to escape the Dust Bowl. He, his wife, Frances, and their four sons grew rice and sold it to the local co-op until the late 1960s, when they became part of the nascent organic farming movement. They built a small rice mill and began selling organic short-grain brown rice.

The farm grew steadily — an average of 11 percent a year — and never needed outside investment. In the 1980s, sales grew much faster than land could be acquired, so the company decided to contract with other growers. Its leaders chose family farms that shared their view of sustainable farming, which Mr. Schultz said was to “leave the land better than you found it.”

In the early 1990s, leadership of the farm moved from the second generation to the third, with the grandchildren of Albert and Frances (and in some cases their spouses, like Mr. Schultz) taking over. Two fourth-generation Lundbergs recently became involved.

Seventy percent of the farm’s sales are organic products and the other 30 percent are “eco-farmed,” meaning no fumigants are used and the company limits the use of herbicides and pesticides, Mr. Schultz said. But that did not insulate the company against the arsenic findings.

Although the government regulates the amount of inorganic arsenic in drinking water, there are no standards for food. “The jury is still out on what levels may cause health problems,” Mr. Schultz said, “but the federal standard for drinking water is 10 parts per billion. Tests on our rice show 95 parts per billion.” Consumer Reports’ tests found levels in rice ranging from about 24 to 214 parts per billion.

With its customers looking for answers, the company worried about how and what to communicate. “One of our biggest challenges is that this is a very technical issue,” Mr. Schultz said. “It’s not a 30-second conversation.”

THE OPTIONS The family’s first response was to play defense. Because many studies have documented the health benefits of eating rice, especially brown rice, Mr. Schultz said, “We were thinking, if this was really causing problems in the population, wouldn’t it have shown up in data somewhere before this?”

Dismissing the new information, however, was not consistent with the business’s culture or the family’s belief system. “We are a company that is always open to new information and ideas — like growing organic,” Mr. Schultz said. “That’s one of the reasons we’ve been successful.”

The farm’s leaders also considered not addressing the issue at all, because the studies and tests were not targeted specifically at Lundberg Family Farms. Mr. Schultz said they discussed letting the industry take the lead and following in the steps of research organizations and industry groups like the USA Rice Federation. “This was a bigger issue than us, so we thought maybe we shouldn’t try to handle this as an individual company,” he said.

But in March, the company posted a video on its Web site in which its chief executive, Grant Lundberg, acknowledged the news and talked about the family’s efforts to keep its products safe and healthy. The decision to post the video was not easy. “Some family members were concerned that we were making this the focal point, rather than stressing all the good things about rice,” Mr. Schultz said. “But we thought this was a way to show that we really do care.”

The farm’s leaders also began intensively studying arsenic and its relationship to rice. They were quickly overwhelmed, however, by the volume of information, much of it contradictory. “We put all the papers and information we were reading online in real time for consumers so they could read what we were reading,” Mr. Schultz said. That proved to be a mistake — too much information and not enough analysis. Not every consumer wants that level of detail, he said: “Many of them just want to know, ‘Will eating rice kill me?’ ”