Delta and Pine Land Company today announced Rick Rice will assume the role of marketing director for the U.S. business.  Rice has spent the bulk of his career in Southern agriculture with focused experience in cotton seed and technology.  He joins the sales and marketing team as the group faces new opportunities and challenges, according to Randy Dismuke, senior vice president for the domestic business. 

"This is an exciting time for D&PL," Dismuke says.  "Our research team has an incredible pipeline of varieties in development and our technology team has given us new biotech trait options to work with in the near future.  Rick will be a vital part of our moving these products to the market successfully.  He has a unique combination of skills and experience that makes him well-suited to the job having worked in the cotton seed industry as well as with biotech traits."

D&PL's varieties are the most planted varieties in the U.S. according to the USDA Agricultural Marketing Service.  Jim Willeke, vice president of sales and marketing, attributes this success to the performance of the company's varieties which are developed through a multi-tiered system beginning with the company's 14 breeding programs. 

"Our research and technical services teams have developed products that perform well for our customers," Willeke says.  "We focus on developing better varieties and then adding in technology.  Right now, growers are making purchase decisions that will impact their crop potential for the season, but as a company we have development choices that will add value on those farms for years, even decades, to come.  Rick will help us get those choices to farmers in the future."

Most recently, Rice has been director of marketing for Lawhon Farm Services' cotton and soybean product lines.  Previously, he spent a number of years with Monsanto in Roundup Ready® marketing, introducing the technology to cotton and managing the marketing of Roundup® and Roundup Ready Soybeans in the South.  He also has worked with AgrEvo (a component of Bayer CropScience), and Elanco (a component of Dow AgroSciences).  He has a bachelor of science degree in agricultural business and economics from Arkansas State University in Jonesboro. 

Delta and Pine Land Company is a commercial breeder, producer and marketer of cotton planting seed, as well as soybean seed in the Cotton Belt.  For more than 80 years, the Mississippi-based company has used its extensive plant breeding programs drawing from a diverse germplasm base to develop superior varieties.  Delta and Pine Land (NYSE:  DLP) has offices in eight states and facilities in several foreign countries.

D&PL, Deltapine and Paymaster are registered trademarks of Delta and Pine Land Company.
Roundup® and Roundup Ready® are registered trademarks of Monsanto Technology, LLC.