Jonesboro, AR – Jonesboro Right Now – Officials gathered in downtown Jonesboro on Thursday to announce Grain and Gather, a new rice-centric event that will take over downtown in November.

The event, which aims to promote rice agriculture and farmers in Northeast Arkansas, has a slew of activities planned, including live music from Cory Johnson, kids’ activities, a rice-brat eating contest, and more. It will coincide with the Rice Bowl, a game between Arkansas State University and ULM.

“We are working to create a rivalry called the Rice Bowl between Arkansas State University and ULM, and so it sort of started last year in Louisiana, and then this year they are playing in Jonesboro,” Becky Campbell, who works with Arkansas Rice, told JRN. “We wanted to make it a full-blown event, make sure that everybody who lives here and works here understands the importance of the Arkansas rice industry and agriculture as a whole to our state.”

Campbell said the plan is for the event to be biannual, so every time the Rice Bowl game is played in Jonesboro, the city will host a rice celebration.

In addition to the rice-brat eating competition, hosted by Lemonade House Grille, Campbell said other downtown restaurants, including Omar’s Brickhouse, Skinny J’s, Cotton Club, The Parsonage, and The Lounge will offer their own special rice dishes during the celebration. People who try these dishes will be entered to win a $100 gift card to Gearhead Outfitters.

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Grain and Gather will not be the only rice festival hosted in Northeast Arkansas. The Arkansas Rice Festival, held annually in Weiner in October, recently celebrated its 50th anniversary. The festival features numerous rice-themed activities, including rice cookoffs, rice threshing demonstrations, and more.

Campbell said it was the Arkansas Rice Festival’s cooking competition that inspired the rice-centric menus downtown restaurants will serve. Cooking competition winners from the Weiner festival will be brought to Grain and Gather to show local restaurants how to incorporate more rice into their offerings.

The event is intended to celebrate the rice industry in Arkansas, which several officials during the ceremony noted had been struggling for a few years. The state represented 45.2% of all U.S. rice production in 2025, according to the University of Arkansas Division of Agriculture.

The industry has seen an increase in farm bankruptcy filings, and rice farmers are projected to lose more than $200 per acre, USA Today reported. Riceland Foods also announced over the summer it was temporarily closing nine rice drying facilities across Arkansas and Missouri, citing sharp decreases in rice acreage.

“We’re taking bigger risks each year, not only on our farms, but our families, and those risks are basically so that us as a nation can provide for ourselves. The rice, that’s big time here in Northeast Arkansas. This is a major, major, major player in our economy,” said Arkansas rice farmer Seth Watkins during the ceremony.

Grain and Gather, which is presented by the Arkansas Rice Federation, is set for Nov. 6-7. The downtown block party, scheduled for 5 p.m. to 10 p.m., will take over Main Street from Cate to Washington avenues and include the live music and various activities. The Rice Bowl game will follow the next day. It is free and open to the public.

“There’s something fitting about this event though, being in the heart of our city to be able to celebrate this crop that means so much to the communities around us,” Jonesboro mayor Harold Copenhaver said in the ceremony. “[It] brings together our agricultural heritage, our local businesses, and the people right here in Northeast Arkansas coming together.”

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