Exporting Rice In Intracoastal City

First came the oil field, then the shrimping industry moved in to Intracoastal City. Now, there is a new industry that is thriving and few would have thought it was possible.
Since August of 2014, hundreds of 18-wheelers have been driving in and driving out of Intracoastal City hauling something other than oil field equipment or the seafood industry.
Tons of rice from Acadiana has been brought to a Broussard Brothers dock in Intracoastal City and off loaded by Broussard Brothers employees onto a barge.
They barge milled and rough rice.
A total of 130 barges filled with rice have left Intracoastal City. That equals to 2.5 million barrels of milled rice and 407,000 barrels of rough rice.
The 3 million total barrels of rice exported in the last six months is more rice than Vermilion Parish harvested last year.
Put that in truck terms, there have been 6,300 trucks that have gone back and forth from Crowley, Rayne, Abbeville and other cities to Intracoastal City.
A prime example was Wednesday morning. At 10 a.m., there were 18 trucks lined along a gravel road waiting to load rice onto a barge.
“This is providing an out-lit for local rice farmers,” said Richard. “What we are doing here is a major economic impact to Intracoastal City and Vermilion Parish.
It takes 48 trucks to load a barge in 14 hours.
The rice comes from mills and farmers throughout south Louisiana.
Once the barge is loaded, a Broussard Brothers tugboat pushes it to the Intracoastal Canal (less than a half a mile from the dock). A contracted river traffic tugboat takes it from Intracoastal City and pushes it to New Orleans. From there, it is loaded onto a cargo ship and exported throughout the world.
This came about because of two friends from Abbeville. One knows the rice business, while the other knows how to load things onto barges. These two men created the business “B&R Bulk Loading” out of Vermilion Parish.
Jimmy Richard, who has been in rice for 30-plus years, had an idea 20 years ago to load rice onto barges. Richard worked for Riviana Rice Mill and contacted Broussard Brothers for help. Back then, they had loaded three barges a month.
“Years ago Jimmy came to me and wanted to know if I could off load a barge,” said Broussard. “I told him we can off load anything you have. At first we unloaded two or three barges and it has grown from there.”
The two men created the business “B&R Bulk Loading” out of Vermilion Parish.
Since August of 2014, their business is doing four times the amount of volume it did six years ago.
Richard said if the export business continues to grow, Broussard Brothers have set up another loading dock if one is needed. The company also has the capability to unload rice from a barge onto a truck.
The two men said having Intracoastal City is a plus for the farming industry. Because the water dock is within 50 miles of the rice mills and farmers, it is cheaper to bring the rice to Intracoastal City than truck it to Port Allen near Baton Rouge.
They said the sky is the limit as far as how much rice they can export in a year. The next crop they are looking to export is soybean.
“This has been good for us,” said Broussard.
“In the past if we did three barges a month, that was pretty good for us,” said Richard. “Today, we are doing five barges a week.”